Smartphone Patent Wars: Is The System Broken ?

Patents are meant to encourage innovation by protecting inventors to profit from innovation. Yet the smartphone patent war is intensifying. Is this a sign that the system is broken or working like it should ?

Well, one thing it does show is that companies who are violating patents are not being overly discouraged from developing products and services that, from the face of it, are copies.

Is The System Broken?

Is the system working like it should? Are we getting to the stage where, god forbid, President Obama shoud step in and referee? If Google is the disruptive force, then Apple is surely the one who is being disrupted.

But, Apple aren't like most companies, they don't want a license fee, the want to protect and maximise what they make from their prized iDevices - they want a complete blanket ban anything it feels it infringing its patents.

The Prize

The prize is something massive – the control of the multi-billion smartphone market.  Although many would say that Apple seems to be dog in this market. Android is making serious dents in Apple's armour. With 500,000 patents found in you’re average smartphone and the convergence hundreds of media platforms and services converging into one device aren’t patent violations inevitable?

The War Lines Have been Drawn

On one side of the war you have Apple; the richest company in the world and it's taking aim at any competitor it feels has copied its prized iDevices - mainly Samsung. And on the other side you have Google and its band of merry men, which we shall call the Android army.

Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

Apple's stringent protection of its products has taken aim at its nearest hardware rival Korean electronics firm Samsung. Rather than going after any of the other Android handset makers or Google. Apple has seen fit to take aim at what they perceives as its biggest competitor in both smartphones and tablets. And don’t just want a fee for any violations. They want a word-wide ban of Samsung’s Galaxy s2 and Galaxy Tab range – an unprecedented move.

Google The Patent Arms Dealer

Google's acquisition of Motorola and its war-chest of 17,000 patents has made the search engine giant become the arms dealer in this war. Handing out legal hand grenades like they are candy. HTC have just starting a legal action against Apple and is using patents that it purchased from Google for an undisclosed fee – to protect its own smartphone business from Apple’s circling legal vultures.

HTC & Google Go After Apple

To this end Apple has since ramped up its desire to protect its interlectual property and this week filed a suit with the Tokyo District Court seeking the suspension of sales of Galaxy S and its sequel S II smartphones and the Galaxy Tab 7 in Japan, according to sources close to the matter. The first hearing was held on Wednesday, the source said.

Not to be outdone by the Cupertino company – HTC with the help of its patent arms dealer Google also set in motion yet more lengthy legal action against Apple.

HTC is Asia's second-biggest smartphone maker, is using nine patents bought from Google last week to pursue new infringement claims against Apple Inc. with the help of patents it has attained from Google for a undisclosed fee. It could a millions or as little as a pound. Nobody knows.

Google's involvement in aiding HTC represents a new front in an industrywide dispute over smartphone technology that has also embroiled Android customers Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

"That's a bit of a game-changer," said Will Stofega, a technology analyst at Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC.

"Google was interested in protecting its licensees with Android. It shows they need to support their customers in order to make sure the customers stick with them."

Apple's Patent War With Samsung Moves to Japan

After patent infringement lawsuits in Australia, South Korea and Germany, Apple is turning up the heat and is suing Samsung in Japan on similar grounds as it has done before. It accuses Samsung of violating Apple's iPhone and iPad-related patents with its Samsung Galaxy series of smartphones and tablets.

Is It Time For A New Referee ? 

As the battle over smartphone intellectual property become more contentious, Verizon Wireless is asking the Obama administration to play referee. According to the Wall Street Journal's Holman Jenkins, Verizon chief counsel Randall Milch is making the rounds in Washington warning about all of the devices that could be blocked from its networks and other operators' networks if the patent war heats up any further.

He might be forced to take action now before it starts to have a serious impact upon the companies, workers and consumers. With the economy faltering – this is the worse time for companies to have their hands tied with lengthy legal battles. The only people who will be benefitting will be the lawyers.

The Patents War Isn’t Good For Consumers

Whatever you feel about the ongoing patent wars – it seems that the customers are the forgotten victims from the war. If Apple do manage to ban handsets and tablets from going on sale where does that leave customers who have already bought them?

Competition on a level playing field is healthy and breeds further innovation – but from a neutral perspective it looks as if Apple and their lawyers taking it a step too far. They themselves are being sued for infringing other companies rights too. From our perspective they’re all probably as guilty as the next – the system is broke and hoping for a resolution from this system is clearly never going to happen.

They need to put the weapons down and start talking to one another – or they are just going to be wasting money on lawyers and hurting the most important thing in any market; the constomers.