On 16 August 2011 12:05, Vince O'Sullivan <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Aug 16, 7:01 am, Ralph Goers <[email protected]> wrote: > > According to CNN, Google said "it wants to buy Motorola Mobility to > defend against > > patent lawsuits levied by its competitors." That is $12.5 billion > dollars not spent > > on innovation but spent instead to help counter-attack against patent > lawsuits. That > > seems like a fairly logical conclusion to me. > > > > Ralph > > On the other hand, it's fair to argue that without the possibility of > selling these patents then Motorola may well have never made the > investment required to innovate at a level that produced thousands of > these patents. By buying these patents, Google have therefore > justified the investment in innovation made by Motorola. > > "Innovation is that which produces patents"... Isn't that a slightly circular definition, and a self-fulfilling prophesy? I can just see the logic now: - innovation is patents - the existence of patent law encourages innovation - (i.e. the existence of patent law encourages the creation of patents) - a company with lots of patents is valuable - because a patent without lots of patents is vulnerable to another company that *does* have them - a large patent portfolio can also be publicized as "being innovative" when a company seeks acquisition - therefore patents = innovation = higher acquisition value = transfer of larger sums of capital = good for the economy Except... None of the above scenario actually *creates* any value, nor is it required that this particular definition of "innovation" should actually create anything useful by way of products that benefit society. It seems like the whole setup has been designed to allow the existence of companies that create nothing of any real value, but are an effective way of siphoning funds into the hands of lawyers and away from those who actually *do* create something of substance (but who don't have a large portfolio, tsk, tsk) Is this really the kind of thing that we want to be actively encouraging? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
