patents

I have to respectfully disagree with +Mike Elgan about #boycottapple 8

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged boycottapple Google+ patents on by (updated 4504 days ago)

I have to respectfully disagree with +Mike Elgan about #boycottapple

Mike is right that corporations are bound by fidicuary responsibility to make as much money for their shareholders as they can within the limits of the law. If we assume that the patent law situation is not going to change then what Apple is doing by trying squash their competition in the courts is the right thing.

However, I think we need to look at this from a broader perspective. Changing intellectual property law can only be done by Congress. Unfortunately our legislators are largely in the pocket of the big corporations that benefit the most from the current IP structure so that means nothing will change unless those corporations decide it needs to change.

But how will that happen you might ask. The only way that these companies will ever change their stance is when it hurts their bottom line to maintain the status quo. That will only happen if consumers stop subsidising this behavior by not buying these products.

If we look at the companies that are abusing the current system, non-practising entities (aka patent trolls) don't make anything to boycott and it appears that the market is already boycotting Microsoft and Nokia for other reasons. Android companies including Samsung, Motorola and HTC are only using patents to defend themselves agains the likes of Apple and Microsoft.

That means the only means we have of changing the direction of intellectual property law is to stop buying from the companies that benefit from it most notably Apple. If Apple starts to believe that persuing patent suits cost them more than lobbying for changes in the law, then they will push for change.

Then and only then will things change.
#patents  

Reshared post from +Mike Elgan

Why the ‘Boycott Apple’ movement is dumb.

The #BoycottApple hashtag was trending hard on Google+ last week. The call to boycott is based on Apple’s attempts to ban both the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Galaxy 10.1 tablet. 

Here’s why the call for a boycott is misguided and futile: 

http://www.cultofmac.com/177786/why-the-boycott-apple-movement-is-dumb/

(Pic props to +Phlash Tha)

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Back in the mid-90s as an engineer at a major global automotive supplier, I spent… 2

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ patents on by (updated 4523 days ago)

Back in the mid-90s as an engineer at a major global automotive supplier, I spent way too many hours analyzing and drafting software patents for slip control systems (anti-lock brakes, traction control and vehicle stability control).

At the time a factor of 10x for the time spent on the patent vs actual development was probably on the high side, we certainly wasted a lot of time on patents. 

I watch today's battles between Apple and the rest of the mobile industry with a mix of bemusement and anger. When I first went to work after getting my mechanical engineering degree, we didn't even really think about patents for the control software, just the hardware we were using.

Once we started making some market inroads with a new system we developed, we learned that our major competitor had a ton of software patents that they were threatening to use against us (sound familiar?). A significant chunk of the engineering effort over the next 12 months was spent going back and tweaking our control algorithms just enough to get around the patents without significantly impacting performance. 

Unlike the Apple vs et al situation today, we were fortunate enough to learn about the potential problems early enough that we could avoid any litigation. We ended up filing a ton of software patents of our own so we ended up in a mutually assured destruction scenario with the competition. Needless to say, none of this actually made the product better, it just made work for IP lawyers and increased the engineering cost of the system. 

Thus I've been a staunch opponent of software patents (and increasingly all patents) ever since. 
#patents  

Reshared post from +Electronic Frontier Foundation

From Defend Innovation: "I'm a co-inventor on 7 patents, and know a bit about how silly software patents are. Most of them do not protect innovation. When it takes 10x longer to do the patent paperwork than to come up with the invention in the first place, how innovative is the thing you are patenting anyway?"  Join the movement to get software patents out of the way of innovation: https://defendinnovation.org

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Defend Innovation
The patent system is in crisis, and it endangers the future of software development in the United States. Let's create a system that defends innovation, instead of hindering it.

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