Google stands at the center of the escalating mobile patent wars, as the developer of the Android operating system that triggered scores of lawsuits and countersuits.
Depending on whom you ask, the company is either the high-minded adult in the debate du jour over intellectual property - or a blatant patent thief.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Google's patent counsel, Tim Porter, argues that the system itself is broken.
For too long, the patent office granted protection to broad, vague or unoriginal ideas masquerading as inventions. That inevitably led to the legal dramas now unfolding, he said.
There's certainly no question that the Mountain View online giant's smart-phone software has been hugely successful. By offering a free operating system, it enabled companies like HTC, Motorola and Samsung to deliver devices that could compete with Apple's breakthrough gadgets.
Android now claims 43 percent of the smart-phone operating system market, compared with 28 percent for the iPhone and 18 percent for RIM's BlackBerry, according to a recent Nielsen report.
But companies including Oracle, Apple and Microsoft all claim that Android is built on technology protected by their patents. Oracle sued Google outright. Apple and Microsoft have gone after the companies using the software, demanding injunctions against selling devices or licensing fees.
More recently, the battlefront shifted to patent portfolios, as the major players scrambled to buy up intellectual-property holdings of companies like Novell and Nortel. Google was dramatically outbid on the Nortel portfolio by a group including Apple, Microsoft and RIM.
That deal prompted regulatory scrutiny - and excoriation from Google.
In an unusually heated blog post, the company claimed that its competitors were "banding together" to impose a "tax" on Android with "dubious patents." More broadly, it argued that intellectual property is now being used to squelch rather than promote innovation.
In the interview, Porter explained that the perpetual wrangling is sucking up time and resources that would otherwise go toward pushing this technology forward and developing the next disruptive inventions.
Q: Let's talk about Microsoft. They sued at least one of your Android partners and have pressured others into licensing agreements, arguing that they have patents that cover critical parts of the software. What do you make of that?
A: Unfortunately, the way it works is you don't know what patents cover until courts declare that in litigation. What that means is people have to make decisions about whether to fight or whether to reach agreements.
This is a tactic that Microsoft has used in the past, with Linux, for example. When their products stop succeeding in the marketplace, when they get marginalized, as is happening now with Android, they use the large patent portfolio they've built up to get revenue from the success of other companies' products.
Q: Google has said these lawsuits and tactics are a threat to innovation. Do you think the uptake or development of Android has slowed because of these issues?
A: I don't think we've seen that happen yet. But the concern is that the more people get distracted with litigation, the less they'll be inventing.
You can look at the development of the software industry and see a point when (software wasn't being patented) and it was a period of intense innovation. You didn't see Microsoft's first software patent until 1988. By that time it had come out with Word, not to mention DOS.
So there's just no question you can look back and see that innovation happens without patents. It's also true that since there weren't patents, there wasn't software patent litigation.
Q: The obvious next question is: Do you think software should be patentable?
A: I think the question is whether the current system makes sense. During the period I talked about, software was protected by copyright and other legal protections. There are certainly arguments those are more appropriate.
Depending on whom you ask, the company is either the high-minded adult in the debate du jour over intellectual property - or a blatant patent thief.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Google's patent counsel, Tim Porter, argues that the system itself is broken.
For too long, the patent office granted protection to broad, vague or unoriginal ideas masquerading as inventions. That inevitably led to the legal dramas now unfolding, he said.
There's certainly no question that the Mountain View online giant's smart-phone software has been hugely successful. By offering a free operating system, it enabled companies like HTC, Motorola and Samsung to deliver devices that could compete with Apple's breakthrough gadgets.
Android now claims 43 percent of the smart-phone operating system market, compared with 28 percent for the iPhone and 18 percent for RIM's BlackBerry, according to a recent Nielsen report.
But companies including Oracle, Apple and Microsoft all claim that Android is built on technology protected by their patents. Oracle sued Google outright. Apple and Microsoft have gone after the companies using the software, demanding injunctions against selling devices or licensing fees.
More recently, the battlefront shifted to patent portfolios, as the major players scrambled to buy up intellectual-property holdings of companies like Novell and Nortel. Google was dramatically outbid on the Nortel portfolio by a group including Apple, Microsoft and RIM.
That deal prompted regulatory scrutiny - and excoriation from Google.
In an unusually heated blog post, the company claimed that its competitors were "banding together" to impose a "tax" on Android with "dubious patents." More broadly, it argued that intellectual property is now being used to squelch rather than promote innovation.
In the interview, Porter explained that the perpetual wrangling is sucking up time and resources that would otherwise go toward pushing this technology forward and developing the next disruptive inventions.
Q: Let's talk about Microsoft. They sued at least one of your Android partners and have pressured others into licensing agreements, arguing that they have patents that cover critical parts of the software. What do you make of that?
A: Unfortunately, the way it works is you don't know what patents cover until courts declare that in litigation. What that means is people have to make decisions about whether to fight or whether to reach agreements.
This is a tactic that Microsoft has used in the past, with Linux, for example. When their products stop succeeding in the marketplace, when they get marginalized, as is happening now with Android, they use the large patent portfolio they've built up to get revenue from the success of other companies' products.
Q: Google has said these lawsuits and tactics are a threat to innovation. Do you think the uptake or development of Android has slowed because of these issues?
A: I don't think we've seen that happen yet. But the concern is that the more people get distracted with litigation, the less they'll be inventing.
You can look at the development of the software industry and see a point when (software wasn't being patented) and it was a period of intense innovation. You didn't see Microsoft's first software patent until 1988. By that time it had come out with Word, not to mention DOS.
So there's just no question you can look back and see that innovation happens without patents. It's also true that since there weren't patents, there wasn't software patent litigation.
Q: The obvious next question is: Do you think software should be patentable?
A: I think the question is whether the current system makes sense. During the period I talked about, software was protected by copyright and other legal protections. There are certainly arguments those are more appropriate.
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