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If you've been following the ongoing mobile operating system wars between companies like Motorola Mobility, Apple, Google and Samsung, you may be interested in a key hearing in the U.S. Senate today. The results could impact not only these companies, but every user of technology.
As you probably know, the biggest hammer a patent owner can wield is to prevent a competitor from selling a product. But the US courts haven't been favorable to this approach since a key Supreme Court ruling in 2006, leading companies to seek an alternate route to a similar result: a judgment by the International Trade Commission (ITC), barring the competitor from importing any product into the U.S. that infringes on the patent. If that patent is essential for implementing a standard that is, in turn, essential to performing the device's function, then you've effectively barred its competitor from being a competitor at all - at least in the U.S.
Whether or not this should be permitted will be the subject of a hearing before a Senate committee today.
Just the facts as related to the article. With the current political situation these hearings are mostly just to placate some complaining constituents. The patent lawsuits will continue. In a way, the M$ "innovation" tax on Android is subsidizing WP8 and the tech companies and their lawyers all contribute to the political campaigns which in an election year that takes priority over anything else.
The problem with the topic of the hearing is that it only addresses standards essential patents. It leaves out all the patents that deal with things like GUI interfaces and database structures. Nor does it address the issue with how easy it is to obtain software patents. Jhansonxi's right, it's about placating constituents, not effectuating patent reform.
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