Want To See A Patent Nuclear War In Action?

from the and-all-for-what? dept

Thu, Sep 20th 2007 5:18pm — Mike Masnick

We've talked about how patents have become a sort of nuclear stockpiling system, where companies hoard a bunch of patents for defensive purposes, mainly to keep competitors from lobbing patent claims at them -- knowing that the original company would just toss a bunch of patent claims right back. However, sometimes that detente breaks down and nuclear war ensues. You can see exactly that in the ongoing three way patent battles between Qualcomm, Broadcom and Nokia. We've been covering some of the individual skirmishes in posts here over the past few years, but the link here pretty much sums up how nuts things are. There are lawsuits in courts all over the country, followed by counter suits from the opposing companies in many of those courts as well. On top of that, there are reviews going on at the International Trade Commission, which has increasingly become a second chance way for companies to fight patent battles. If someone can explain how all of this helps to promote innovation, we'd appreciate it.

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Filed Under: patents
Companies: broadcom, nokia, qualcomm

8 Comments

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thinker, 20 Sep 2007 @ 5:53pm

It helps law firms grow enormously, and is currently helping the rapid growth in the legal sector.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2007 @ 6:03pm

It also gives places like techdirt something to write about and help justify their existence. It also ensures lots of court and associated workers have jobs and, generally provides a bit of entertainment for the rest of us.

Good stuff really, when you think about it.
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ChronoFish, 20 Sep 2007 @ 7:07pm

In the end....
In the end IBM wins....

-CF
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2007 @ 7:20pm

It means that even though everyone laughs at me for taking a degree in psychology (specialising in counselling), in 5 years I'll be laughing all the way to the bank when I'm charging a fortune to help stressed out lawyers.

Ha!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2007 @ 7:34pm

I think 'Nuclear Patent War' would be a better title than 'Patent Nuclear War'. But that's just my opinion.
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Knee Grow Brown, 20 Sep 2007 @ 8:22pm

I'm Jelaous
I wish I worked in a law firm doing IP and Patent work instead of slinging dis ass on teh streetz.

BTW, 5 will get you Chachi but 10 will get you Fonzi.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2007 @ 9:03pm

"I wish I worked in a law firm doing IP and Patent work instead of slinging dis ass on teh streetz.

BTW, 5 will get you Chachi but 10 will get you Fonzi."

I'd use one of the web translators to turn this into English but I'm not sure what 'From' language to choose. Can somebody help me out?
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Random, 20 Sep 2007 @ 11:48pm

Lawyers
Sometimes I think that these companies must employ a team of lawyers who then sit around and think up ways of keeping themselves in a job.

How much interaction do you think the actual company has with its lawyers on telling them what to follow?

It wouldn't surprise me if they were told to go off and win - and that's it.
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