Patents and Copyrighted Issues Around Major Players

Written by AndroidRed Sunday, 01 May 2011 01:27

As an open source, Linux is rumored to be more susceptible to patent infringement lawsuits. Just like Google that is accused to violate other open sources in order to develop its operating system “Android”. On the other opportunity, Microsoft delivered the casual statements on violations in Android and took next step by suing makers shipping Android on their phones for violating un-named Microsoft patents.

The world admitted that Google’s Android is on its moment as a rising star among some popular operating systems. Its greatest achievement came when it became the fastest developing smartphone operating system and it still is today. So, it is reasonable when there are parties who catch a sight of Google as a way to make easy money from on-going royalty payments.

Google’s vast development – which is now expanding on tablets operating system – had resulted in various opinions from analysts, especially regarding their prediction saying Google’s Android is going to become the world’s number-one smartphone operating system by 2015.

With the copyright and patent claims euphoria, it sounds very dramatic to say that actually not only Linux and open source that are at stake related to the situation, but almost every party. However, one thing should be highlighted is that patent litigation is obviously an issue in technology industry. Everyone should stop arguing about how the patent reform package will look like.

There are estimations said that Android has been attacked with 39 suits in the previous year reasoning of Google doesn’t have a sufficient patent portfolio. On the contrary, on field there is different situation occurred like patent holders Microsoft, Nokia, Apple, Motorola, or RIM are unfortunately all being sued. They are sued by each other or somebody else.

Actually, the biggest thread those patent holders should be aware of is the small patent trolls instead of the major players. They can be the real danger because they buy single patents of whole portfolios and expect for claimed violations. The examples of big players who have been fallen into that situation is H-W Technology, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, eBay, Nokia, Motorola, Sony, Priceline, Expedia, and Hotels.com.

From here, it seems getting clearer that big companies, especially that are running in technology industry should be able, to understand and careful about this patents or copyrighted matters. Although they have been giving best efforts, there are always empty clusters other parties will find and claim patents for their own benefits.