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Microsoft recently took action to keep itself out of the patent infringement lawsuit frenzy that has been sweeping through the tech industry like the latest fad in a posh high school. The tech behemoth has licensed 74 Palm patents in a move that is logical yet seems to escape the collective minds of executives at all of Microsoft's biggest competitors.
The patents relate to basic smart phone technology and were licensed from Acacia Research Corp. and Access Co. Ltd., a Japanese company that in 2005 bought PalmSource, who was behind the Palm OS that made Treos king of the smart phone market in Palm's glory days. Some of these very same patents are already involved in a pending lawsuit Acacia filed in march in federal court in Tyler, Texas against Apple, RIM, Samsung, Motorola and other smart phone makers. The tech company that is notably NOT mentioned in that lawsuit is Microsoft.
'By focusing on efficiently licensing patented innovations from other companies, we're free to develop great software and we're able to provide our partners and customers [intellectual property] peace-of-mind,' said David Kaefer, general manager of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft.
There are so many patents currently in the court system between the big tech companies, and centering around smart phones, that it is not even worth it to break them down here. It is worth noting that all the companies have been involved in patent suits, and most have both been sued as well as suing others.
What is interesting is that according to The Wall Street Journal, Acacia is 'a company that specializes in licensing intellectual property on behalf of rightsholders at universities and other companies—and often suing those companies that refuse such deals.'
Also interesting to me is that the company that is the loudest whiner in the 'you stole my idea' fad, is Apple. Yet they too have been sued for infringing on patents.
If you look at Palm's patents, technically no smart phone has the right to exist without Palm's say so. Palm has a patent on idea of a PDA integrated with a phone, which is what all smart phones are. There are also several other Palm patents that cover the basic operation of a smart phone.
In reality, I think all tech companies steal ideas from each other. They take their competition's innovations and build and improve upon them. I am not so sure that is a bad thing. That's the spirit of competition and it keeps our gadgets in a continual state of improvement. Of course it is bad for the company whose innovations are made to look obsolete by a competitor's improvement on it. But that company's innovation was likely based upon another. It is a vicious cycle but I personally think the consumer gains a lot from it, and I do not think the tech companies really lose as much as they claim to.
Source: Wall Street Journal Online article
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