A patent war is a "battle" between corporations or individuals to secure
patents
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
for litigation, whether offensively or defensively. There are ongoing patent wars between the world's largest technology and software corporations. Contemporary patent wars are a global phenomenon, fought by multinational corporations based in the United States, China, Europe, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
Patent wars have occurred in a wide range of technologies, both in the past and in the present.
History
Patent wars are not a new phenomenon. In the
Wright brothers patent war
The Wright brothers patent war centers on the patent they received for their method of airplane flight control. The Wright brothers were two Americans who are widely credited with inventing and building the world's first flyable airplane and mak ...
, the
Wright brothers, attributed with the invention of the
airplane
An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spe ...
, sought to prevent competitors from manufacturing airplanes through litigation, stifling the development of the American airline industry.
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...
, credited with inventing the telephone, was dragged into a patent war against his rivals, which involved, in just 11 years, 600 lawsuits.
One notable case was Bell's lawsuit against
Western Union
The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...
. Western Union was backed by
Elisha Gray
Elisha Gray (August 2, 1835 – January 21, 1901) was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. ...
, also credited with inventing the telephone.
The occurrence of patent wars has been shaped by the
digital age
The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during t ...
, as the rapid pace of innovation makes much of the patent system obsolete.
In the 1980s, technology corporations in the United States and Japan engaged in a patent war, creating a scenario where companies were forced to "fight patent with patent." This bilateral patent war, partly exaggerated by the media, subsided by the mid 1990s.
Exacerbating the frequency of patent wars was the advent of
patent troll
In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or ...
ing. The term "patent troll" was coined in the 1990s by the employees of
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
and popularized by Intel's
Peter Detkin Peter N. Detkin was a managing partner and 20% owner of Intellectual Ventures. He is currently the Managing Director of the Sherpa Technology Group.
Biography
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.S.E.E. in 1982 and J.D. in 1 ...
. According to Detkin, Intel was "sued for libel for the use of the term 'patent extortionists' so I came up with 'patent trolls...a patent troll is somebody who tries to make a lot of money off a patent that they are not practicing and have no intention of practicing and in most cases never practiced."
During the 1990s, federal courts began reversing earlier decisions made by the patent office that restricted the patenting of software.
In 1997, software companies
Trend Micro
is an American-Japanese multinational cyber security software company with global headquarters in Tokyo, Japan and Irving, Texas, United State.Other regional headquarters and R&D centers are located around East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and ...
,
Integralis,
McAffee
McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company head ...
and
Symantec fought a patent war over
antivirus software
Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware.
Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the nam ...
. In 1999, a patent for "one-click ordering technology" led to a patent war between
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
and
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...
.
In 2004, Sony and Kodak engaged in a patent war over digital cameras, a dispute which lasted until 2007.
The current
smartphone wars
The smartphone wars or smartphone patents licensing and litigation refers to commercial struggles among smartphone manufacturers including Sony Mobile, Google, Apple Inc., Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, Huawei, LG Electronics, ZTE and HTC, b ...
started in the late 2000s. According to ''
PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
'', Apple brought the patent wars to the smartphone market by its desire to "go thermonuclear war" on Google's competing
Android operating system for mobile devices.
This triggered a "war" between major technology companies in the mobile market.
Apple has been accused of having links to the company Digitude Innovations, which has been labeled as a patent troll. Following this warfare, Apple itself has also been called a patent-troll.
Effects and response
Patents are intended to protect
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
and encourage innovation, granting innovative companies a temporary competitive advantage over their rivals; however, patents have been used offensively through threats of litigation. This forces companies to allocate time and money that could have been better spent on research and development.
''
Businessweek
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
'' has written that "only lawyers win in patent wars."
[
There are numerous proposals aimed at reducing the risk of patent wars. ]Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
announced in 2012 an "Innovator's Patent Agreement" promising not to use its patents opportunistically and without the consent of the company's employees. There have been commentators favoring abolishing patents entirely, outside of the industries that require them.
References
{{reflist, 30em
Legal disputes
Patent law