Friday, May 3, 2013

Week 12 Blog 24: If you can't beat them, acquire them

Normally when we hear about mobile patents in the latest news, they're usually about how one is suing another, entering an extremely costly lawsuit for god knows how long. However, there is a rather peaceful alternative to dealing with sharing technology that do not require court trials. Apple has recently agreed to a $10 million licensing deal with Access Corporation, a Japanese software provider for mobile devices. Yeah it wasn't cheap, but better than bringing up a patent infringement case with lawyers costing hundres of millions.


What does this mean? If you have the money to pay for it, you can buy your access to another company's patent portfolio for a certain period of time. Of course Access also acquired these patents from PalmSource, and now Apple wants to play with them too. Access made a similar deal with Microsoft in 2010, and they're definitely making profits from holding onto these patents. Note these are not non-practicing entities. As this article notes, patents can be very useful as well as expensive investments.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/10/apple-reaches-smartphone-patent-licensing-deal/
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4 comments:

  1. UnknownMay 4, 2013 at 12:13 PM

    I agree with you here, that companies would trend to play safe and pay for the license. However, companies will prefer litigation if the patent infringement case involves competitors.

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  2. UnknownMay 4, 2013 at 7:40 PM

    You're right, acquisition is not a solution that often comes up when it comes to patent infringement. If you're a big dog like Apple, it doesn't seem like such a bad choice.

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  3. UnknownMay 5, 2013 at 10:56 PM

    Although, Google seems to be good with hide and seek when it comes to paying up license fees. Microsoft is just amazing at collecting royalties and making sure that companies abide to their terms.

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  4. UnknownMay 7, 2013 at 8:05 PM

    These licensing deals are strategically led and a very important part of business operations. Access Corporation indeed is a leading data center facility and internet service provider.

    ReplyDelete

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