Thoughts from a Bafta nominated Podcaster, Blogger, Writer and Commentator.
Yesterday saw Tesla Motors made their patents on electric vehicles available to all for free. A good marketing move, and one that may also help the start-up motor industry. In all the coverage, there was one mention of Volvo opening up one of their patents in the past. Added to my “things I now know…” Volvo invented and patented the three-point seatbelt, and then opened the patent and allowed everyone free use of the design in other car designs.
Kurt Eichenwald takes a look at Samsung/Apple for Vanity Fair, and the… interesting strategy that Samsung has used time and time again in regards to patents and competitive pressure: According to various court records and people who have worked with Samsung, ignoring competitors’ patents is not uncommon for the Korean company. And once it’s caught it launches into the same sort of tactics used in the Apple case: countersue, delay, lose, delay, appeal, and then, when defeat is approaching, settle. “They never met a patent they didn’t think they might like to use, no matter who it belongs to,” says
Dyson’s steering mechanism on its vacuum cleaners was patented in 2009, but now media friendly inventor James Dyson is looking closely at Samsung’s Motion Sync vacuum cleaners, which debuted at the recent IFA tech show (along with the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch). It looks spookily family to Dyson. Samsung has many patent lawyers so I find it hard not to believe that this is a deliberate or utterly reckless infringement of our patent. We have been forced to issue proceedings in the English High Court, but I would much rather invest in research to develop new technology than have to
Daniel Nazer on the EFF: We’d like to enlist your help to fight this troll. One way to defeat a troll is to prove—either in court or at the patent office—that the claimed invention was not new (or was obvious). In other words, show that the patent applicant didn’t really invent anything. To do this, we need to find publications from before October 2, 1996 that disclose similar or identical ideas (this also known as prior art). The best prior art will include publications describing early versions of podcasting or any other kind of episode distribution over the Internet. I;m drawing
Perhaps unavoidably, the technology press massively jumped the gun when the jurors read out their verdict on Friday. David Gilson on what Apple/Samsung really means for Windows Phone.
Most consumers who’ve been tricked into buying Android will either migrate to iPhone or perhaps move to a legitimate third alternative if one ever arises. And that means there’s no battle for the geeks left to fight… their influence on the mainstream, which had been in freefall for a decade, officially ended this week. For the first time in the history of consumer technology, consumers are now fully calling the shots going forward. Bill Palmer on the consequences of the Apple/Samsung patent case.
