A loss for freedom

Traditionally, the popular mind didn't think of patents and other forms of intellectual property as limitations on our freedom. Rather, people just thought of the patent as a reasonable vehicle to help an inventor reap the rewards of his ingenuity by preventing imitators from riding his coat tails. One of the reasons we thought of it this way was because most people weren't in a position to invent anything. Sure, we've all heard the stories of people coming up with novel devices that change our everyday lives and striking it rich, but for most of our lives the invention/patent game has been dominated by corporations. These corporations don't necessarily patent actual inventions - they often patent concepts. Then, when a competitor actually puts the idea into practice - not by copying, but through honest hard work - the patent holder uses the threat of costly patent litigation to to either freeze their competition out of the marketplace or extract a licensing fee as part of a settlement.

In the article linked below, we see Apple using patents and international law to freeze HTC Android phones out of the American market. I don't like the result - or software patents in general -but at least Apple versus HTC is a fair fight. Because HTC fought, it was able to prove that two of Apples patent claims were completely bogus.

People are starting to realize the ugliness of the world of patents because we're living in a time where anyone can develop a small but useful computer application. Small application developers receive threats of litigation all too often - with accusations that they've violated vague and dubious software patents. These small develops can't afford to fight the way HTC did, so they agree to pay a portion of their proceeds to the patent troll.

What if you developed a code that did something useful - not by copying, but by figuring it out yourself - and Apple sued you because they claimed one or two lines of the code violated the type of invalid patents HTC was able to beat? Could you afford to fight the way HTC did? It would cost a lot of money, time, and resources - likely far more than the profits from your application and almost certainly enough to prevent you from investing in a follow up application. So, more likely than not, you'd be bullied into either pulling your application from the market or paying Apple a tax.

Apple wins ban of HTC Android devices at US International Trade Commission | The Verge