Apple handed Samsung-busting nuke after Steve Jobs patent U-turn Apple has won a crucial victory over its touchy rivals following a decision to confirm its ownership of intellectual property dubbed the "Steve Jobs patent". The patent relates to the fruity firm's multitouch user interface, which it uses on iPhones and iPads. It was one of the two patents allegedly infringed by Samsung that …
On the one hand I like many find these sort of patents either absurd or obvious and don't think they should be granted a patent.
On the other hand one of the Sunday papers was reporting yesterday how Trevor Baylis has had to do an equity release from his house as many companies have circumvented his many patents.
Perhaps there needs to be a time limit on patents in the IT industry?
Trevor Bayliss aside, companies should succeed or fail on the strength of their products - if Apple & co spent as much time & money innovating as they did in the courtroom then they wouldnt need to resort to these farcical playground tactics.
All this litigation is irrelevant for the companies involved. Even if Samsung gets found guilty of infringement they can ban imports of the S4 two years or so from now. Big win. Patents in the current system work great for trolls (they can easily make it more expensive to settle than to fight), but not so much for protecting IP from copies. The money involved is not going to hurt Samsung or Moto.
Because Samsung is not used to innovation and is not confident that it can innovate well enough, it has embarked on a business strategy based on copying innovators like Apple by copying Apple's IPs. Its stock price has shown that copying is a good business strategy largely by gaming the patent system's slow response which works works in virtual cahoots with the infringer.
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