If you have been keeping tabs on all of the mobile news that has been happening in the past couple of years, the number of lawsuits between manufacturers is pretty interesting to see. While the volume has not reached hundreds (which would be ridiculous), the fact that the number of lawsuits has long gone up the double digits goes to show that there is much to be earned and lost in the patent wars.
But why would these be important? While it may not seem like much, a successful lawsuit would have the target of the lawsuit cease production, shipment and sales of a certain handset –not to mention having to pay off a certain amount per handset. This is more than just making a competitor lose sales, but also about making a heavy profit. Phones ship out in the hundred thousands; more successful devices ship out in millions. Even a payoff of a small amount per handset would equate into an incredibly large sum.
Add to this equation that patent lawsuits do not target a specific device –but a specific technology that might be used in a series of handsets.
Of course, there is plenty of bad blood between mobile phone companies –and that that tend to overuse the legal approach are heavily antagonized by their competitors. As much as Steve Jobs tends to be abrasive with his comments and retorts, it is Apple’s tendency to keep sending out their legal hounds at almost every turn that has given the Cupertino based company quite a reputation.
Naturally, favorite targets include Google, Nokia and most of the industry’s heavy hitters. Especially for smaller electronic manufacturers who have been able to file an old patent that they never developed but have been re-discovered by another company; in a tech legal crunch that certainly goes lower than internet URL squatting, patent trapping is one of the worst practices that small companies rely on for big payoffs.
Tags: Apple, Google, lawsuits, Nokia, patent-infringement, patents