Apple vs. Google: It’s on like Donkey Kong!
March 2nd, 2010, 2:54pm by Jake
While the headlines may read Apple sues HTC, it’s quite obvious that the real target is Android and, by extension, Google. Engadget has a detailed breakdown by their resident lawyer. What it illustrates more than anything is what a patent thicket exists in the smartphone world. If all these patents were enforced, there wouldn’t be any on the market. Apple is now stranger to lawsuits, and most relevant is likely the Nokia vs. Apple battle that is destined to last half-a-decade or more. What does all these mean to the tech world? My quick take is that Palm is the big winner, or at least smaller loser, being able to sit on the sidelines. Palm’s a pretty poor target for a lawsuit, since they have such meager revenue & boatloads of patents in the smartphone/ PDA/ touch computing realm.
What’s in store for this Battle of Silicon Valley?
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Gizmodo has a nice retelling of the growing rivalry, http://gizmodo.com/5483662/how-apple-and-googles-romance-turned-to-hate .
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Can’t really see that anybody’s going to be a big winner. Palm will be a winner in the same way that, say, Ericsson will be a winner — they’re just not involved (lucky for them — as you mentioned, they’d have a hard time sustaining a protracted legal fight, even if they were in the right).
Hopefully, far down the road, the big winner will be all of us, when it’s realized that patenting things like UI elements is stupid. Or maybe a 1-year patent would be appropriate.
By the way, did you see that Facebook patented the idea of a “News Feed” last week?