Who Are Patents Protecting?
Feb 27, 2006
With the rapid increase in patent law litigation in the last 10 years, some are suggesting that there is something wrong with the patent system itself. The recent RIM case offers an interesting look at this issue, and is the subject of a Washington Post article that caught our eye.
While NTP is suing RIM for patent infringement and trying to get an injunction to stop their service, NTP doesn't have plans to offer its own BlackBerry-like service to consumers if and when BlackBerry is forced to stop service. And there are numerous other patent litigation cases that involve companies that have raced to patent ideas that they never plan to convert into actual products. Which leads us back to the question...who are patents protecting? It's one of the controversial topics we'll address at Tech Policy Summit in February.
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