[amazon_link id=”0470339454″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks For Dummies[/amazon_link]Earlier Microsoft sued Android phone makers, now Oracle is suing Google for Android. Patents were to protect innovators instead its being used to stop innovation.

The big old daddies of the IT industry are going after the new companies.

The old ones have nothing new to innovate. Thy are too comfortable in their zone to make the big bold moves. These companies are eventually going to get extinct and are only resting on their past laurels. They are utilising their patent portfolios to make money and stop other companies from innovating.

HTC is paying $5 for every Android phone to Google Microsoft , yes Microsoft! Microsoft makes more money than Google on every Android phone for patents! The business models is similar to the Mafias asking for protection money. The patents hoarders are the new age Mafia.

If you don’t believe me they are going to be extinct? Do your maths. If you bought Microsoft stock 10 years back for $60, today it would be worth US$28. You would have lost more than 50 percent of your value in 10 years. This is for a company that controls the software on 90 percent of the computers.

Now Google is buying patents, not because they need them. But to have a defensive patent portfolio. You see in the tech industry the big 800 pound gorillas never get sued by other gorillas because they have a patent portfolio.

From Google’s Blog:

The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to stifle innovation. Some of these lawsuits have been filed by people or companies that have never actually created anything; others are motivated by a desire to block competing products or profit from the success of a rival’s new technology. The patent system should reward those who create the most useful innovations for society, not those who stake bogus claims or file dubious lawsuits. It’s for these reasons that Google has long argued in favor of real patent reform, which we believe will benefit users and the U.S. economy as a whole.

Google wants to purchase patents from Nortel Network, a company now gone bankrupt (you cant live on patents for too long you see). Microsoft has a license from Nortel Network and fears Google may cancel their license.

Reuters:

Microsoft, which claims a “worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to all of Nortel’s patents” following a 2006 deal, said in a filing with a Delaware bankruptcy court that existing agreements should be transferred to any new owner of the intellectual property, which spans many fields.

Google has bid $900 million to buy more than 6,000 patents and patents applications belonging to Nortel, a once mighty Canadian network equipment maker that filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009.

Glyn Moody says:

I mean, let’s be consistent here: if you want to abuse the patent system, expect to be on the receiving end of similar abuse. On the other hand, rather more laudably, why not stop abusing, in which case you can take the moral high ground when others start abusing the system to attack you?

Its high time we replace the patent system with open source and let the innovation happen again.