Print 19 comment(s) - last by Aloonatic.. on Dec 4 at 6:50 AM










Source: Reuters

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By psonice on 11/29/2011 5:09:52 AM , Rating: 2
Well, it's very complicated to work out the rights and wrongs of this. To be honest, I have zero issue with the idea of ipcom owning patents, and even getting HTC's phones banned - except for one very important point which I'll come to at the end. Here's why:

- The patent was originally applied for by Bosch. They DID do a lot of inventing, in fact some of the first mobile phones were made by them.

- The whole point of patents is that if I invent something and patent it, I should get the exclusive right to profit from my invention for so many years. That's my reward for all the hard work involved in inventing it.

- If some other company steals my idea and starts selling products using it, I should have some legal protection. Basically, I can either get their product banned, or I can license my work to them for a fee, which I set.

- Selling my patent on to somebody like ipcom? Licensing and enforcing a patent takes a LOT of money (as in millions!) and a lot of time and specialist knowledge. And inventor doesn't want to do that, they want to invent more stuff. And they likely don't have the resources to sue. So yes, it makes a lot of sense to sell the patent for a big cash sum, then get back to work.

So yeah, in theory a company like ipcom gets my full support. There's a lot of companies like this that ARE worth of respect too - it's just that some (like ipcom, lodsys and the like) behave unethically and get all the bad press.

As to why I think ipcom should be hit with a very large hammer on this one: the patent is a core part of the 3G spec. These patents HAVE to be licensed out for a fair fee, or the phone system stops working. ALL smartphones infringe this patent and require a license, not just HTC.

These patents are normally licensed under FRAND (where they're required to license, and at a fair price), and normally when a company like IPCOM tries to sue based on them the case gets kicked out and IPCOM would be told to license it. For some reason the german courts are ignoring that and are handing out bans instead.

