THanks for sharing the references, I must go read. Btw, VZ had at one time a VOIP service called Voice WIng or something wing and it did disappear apparently a few years ago and this was before they rolled out their Fios service. I would agree this is a really expensive and very entertaining game companies play and we'll have to sit back with a bag of popcorn and a cold beer and see where all this heads.
On May 10, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Chris Blouch wrote: > Amassing a large portfolio of patents is a common protection method for large > companies. Patent anything plausible and add them to your quiver in case > somebody sues you. The intent isn't competitive advantage by exploiting those > discoveries in your own products, but rather as a path to mutually assured > damage. If you sue me for stepping on your patent, I'm sure I can come up > with five of my own you're stepping on, so back off. Then it comes down to > messy court battles with suits and countersuits to see who holds the best > hand and has the deepest pockets. Sometimes these things get settled and > there is a press release about the glorious new world where to friends are > going to mutually assist each other by cross-pollinating their technology > portfolios. Other times somebody goes down and has to cough up cash. > > I got to experience some of this as a Vonage VOIP customer as they were sued > by Verizon under patents they had for doing VOIP. Apparently VZ had these > patents for sometime, patents to deliver really cheap high quality telco over > plain old IP, and they did nothing. Then Vonage came along and once they got > big enough to be a competitor VZ trotted out their patents and trounced > Vonage in court. Why would VZ be interested in rolling out a product or > service that was lower cost and competed with their own high-margin services? > They wouldn't, and with their patents they could make sure nobody else did > either. > > So it will be interesting. Is Apple blatantly stomping on Nokia's patents and > think they wouldn't get caught or that the patents were weak/obiovus? Did > Nokia have these just in drydock in case somebody like Apple stumbled upon a > better but less profitable way to do something? Maybe they were submarine > patents that Nokia held in secret just in case somebody came up with > something competitive. Only the courts and lawyers are going to have the time > and details to sort all that out. > > Fun reading on mutually assured damage: > http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/30/1091080437270.html > > And the related submarine patent: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_patent > > CB -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" 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/macvisionaries?hl=en.
