« More on financial competitiveness | Main | Reputation »
November 27, 2006
Proliferating VIOP patents
Patents, patents and even more patents. I came across the following in Business Week a couple of weeks ago - VoIP Patents: Innovation—and Lawsuits:
The Patent & Trademark Office is approving patents aplenty for Internet-based calling. On Nov. 14 alone, it handed out a patent on what IBM calls a "conversations computing system," and granted chipmaker Intel a patent for a computer-based phone "eliminating the need for a telephone set."
Those were among dozens of patents granted on two separate days in November to companies including Texas Instruments, Motorola, and Nokia. In October, the PTO gave an additional 76 patents to the likes of Qualcomm, Nortel, Broadcom, Time Warner's AOL, and NTT DoCoMo of Japan.
In all, the U.S. has to date issued 2,049 patents related to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a technology that enables low-cost or free calling using the same method that zips e-mail around the Internet.
I think this illustrates the problems of patent thickets, especially in IT: over 2000 VoIP patents and counting. As the article goes on to say:
Chances are, many patent battles will be fought outside the courtroom. Patent holders are likely to use their intellectual property portfolio to extract concessions on cross-licensing deals, where one company may share its VoIP expertise in exchange for use of another company's patented technology, says VoIP expert Jeff Pulver. "It's certainly going to be something somebody could use against somebody."
This also illustrates the differences in technologies. A new drug has a patent (or a few patents) on the chemical composition and on the process. IT has literally thousands of patents on one technology. How to deal with that difference is the major stumbling point for patent reform.
It is also the reason why we need patent reform. Does anyone really think that everyone in the VoIP business (equipment supplier to service supplier) has carefully researched all 2049 patents to make sure they aren't infringing? And that there aren't a bunch more patents out there that may not be called VoIP related, but really are?
It's the Wild West out there -- it really is folks. Time for the Congress to finally step up and deal with the problem.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at November 27, 2006 10:11 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.athenaalliance.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1005