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Thursday, August 02, 2007

Apple: Huge Bubble Of Patent Assertions That Needs To Be Scaled Back.

Yesterday, the

Stanford Summit 2007 had a session on The Patent Crisis: Crossroads for the Business of Technology. Mr Michael Brandis of

Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold acted as moderator of a discussion panel comprising:

Mr Chip Lutton, Chief Patent Counsel, Apple;
Ms Michelle Lee, Assoc. General Counsel, Head of Patents, Google;
Mr David Kappos, VP & Asst. Gen. Counsel, Int. Property Law, IBM;
Mr David Hayes, Partner, Intellectual Property Group, Fenwick & West.

TheRegister is

reporting on a sceptical standpoint concerning the patent system, in particular in the U.S., issued on behalf of Google:

"[...] Google's head of patents believes the U.S. patent system is 'in crisis'. Discussing patent reform at the annual Stanford Summit in Northern California, associate general counsel Michelle Lee told conference attendees that the American system is 'out-of-balance [and] needs to be remedied'.

'The Patent Office is overburdened,' she said. 'The volume of patents going in is huge. And the quality of patents coming out - it could be better.' [...]"

It appears as if the IT industries are unable to find a common view on that subject matter. Apple's view is different:

"[...] Speaking alongside Lee, Apple's chief patent counsel, Chip Lutton, wouldn't go quite so far as his Google counterpart. He said the US patent system was 'not broken' and that it was 'not in crisis,' calling it 'the best in the world'. But he acknowledged that there was a 'huge bubble' of patent assertions that needs to be scaled back. 'The question with this bubble market, as with any bubble market, is 'Can we solve it without a crisis arising?' ' he said. [...]"

And, IBM appears to share much of Apple's views:

"[...] Lutton's attitude was mirrored by that of fellow speaker David Kappos, vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property law at IBM, the company that has led the country in patent filling for the last 14 years. [...]"

When it comes to patent policy, many divergencies are not to be perceived between the positions of anti-IP NGOs on the one side and the position some sort of a monolithic bloc of industries on the other but more companies are now meticulously analysing their own business models, and if they find that they are vulnerable by some effects of the patent system they don't hesitate to line up with other patent critics out there. And surely Google might have reasons to fear potential detrimental impacts of phenomena like patent trolls

even more than IBM. So far, the picture seems to be consistent.

A slating review of the current state of affairs in the patent system referring to the Stanford event is

available as usual on

Slashdot.

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