“Under the headline ‘Samsung-Apple Patent Fight: Is It Worth It?,’ Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal takes a long look at three years of smartphone litigation and concludes that the answer is no,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes for Fortune.
“The problem with pairing this thesis with that headline is that it conflates two kinds of patents,” P.E.D. explains. “Standards-essential patents (SEPs), that must be used to comply with a technical standard, such as a communications protocol or a widely used plug, like the USB. Owners of these patents, in return for the benefit of being able to collect royalties on every device that adopts the standard, are required to license them under so-called FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discrimanatory) terms. Non-SEPs, sometimes called ‘innovation’ or ‘differentiation’ patents. These patents have not been adopted by a standards-setting body. They can represent many years of proprietary development work, and they don’t have to be shared with competitors.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Or “utility” vs. “design” patents. It’s quite simple, actually: Apple sued in order to protect their design (innovation) patents and the thieves who got sued retaliated by countersuing with the only option they had to impede the process: FRAND abuse. For both of which (infringing on Apple’s design patents and subsequently abusing standard-essential patents; basically obstructing justice) they will eventually pay dearly, we hope.
We expect better of the WSJ.
Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
Here’s what Google’s Android looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tom Hogan” for the heads up.]
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