A very interesting onslaught of patent lawsuits were launched against Google and related Android partners in November 2013. As opposed to the "conventional" lawsuit of one company facing off against another company, a team of tech giants consisting of Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry, Sony, and Ericsson decided to come together to try and take down Google. They named themselves Rockstar. The lawsuits touch upon a portfolio of more than 6,000 patents that span a wide range of technologies from search engines to 4G communication. The decision on this lawsuit could be huge for the smartphone landscape as Google and its partners have been doing quite well as of late.
Because the global mobile market is expected to be worth over $340 billion dollars in 2015, with smartphones being the majority of the market share, the decision on this string of lawsuits could define the company that succeeds most over the next 5-10 years. It is interesting that these giant companies are willing to band together to take down a fellow giant, regardless of partnerships in other areas. After the patent lawsuit waters became relatively calm in 2009, this has reinvigorated the smartphone patent warfare.
I can distinctly remember my life without a smartphone, but it's astounding to think that, by the time we graduate, this new market will already be worth over $300 billion! Knowing this, it's not shocking to hear that companies would come together (forming "Rockstar") to bring down any competitor that would come between a leading firm and its share in this profitable market.
ReplyDeleteA portfolio of 6,000 patents is definitely going to be costly to go through. While this string of lawsuits might determine which companies succeed, it might not be favorable to the consumers. Some products from each side might be restricted from containing some parts of the whole that make them awesome, and both sides might suffer from all the limitations due to patent infringement. However, this deadlock might lead to an end of the patent war when it begins to impede rather than improve their businesses.
ReplyDeleteWow! 6000 patents is a lot of patents!!! This form of weaponizing patents is definitely not in the consumers' best interest. I believe the USPTO and some other regulatory body needs to step in to reform the intellectual property system in the US today. It's not acceptable that privileges that used to exist to protect the inventor are now being used to grab a share of these billions of dollars.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this, Roshan, one thing is clear in my mind: You are the real Rockstar.
The distinct advantage that Rockstar has is that it is a Non-Practicing Entity. Since it doesn't actually produce any product relating to the patents it holds, it does not have to fear being countersued by Google. It's the business version of a Cold War era proxy war.
ReplyDeleteI myself did a very similar article on how those select companies you talked about and how they created the entity Rockstar. Although, I think that this was a very innovative means of trying to avoid taking on Google directly, I still think that at the end of the day, they are accomplishing the same thing. The amount of patents that the money was able to affect is enormous and it is crazy to think that most of these patents fall under a few very broad categories, which they used to try and use for litigation against Google. I think in the future, it'll be interesting to see how Google responds, whether it be to go after Rockstar or the companies that are involved with the creation of Rockstar
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