Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Tech companies place big bets on patents - The Boston Globe

Sign of the times

“In my 35 years of practice, I have not seen so much litigiousness over pools of patents,’’ said Robert Tendler, a Boston patent attorney formerly employed by Motorola.

As they build their stockpiles, companies like Google will often purchase patents unrelated to the company’s own inventions, but which can be used to threaten countersuits against rivals. Wendy Seltzer, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, compared it to “mutually assured destruction,’’ the threat of complete annihilation that prevented the United States and Soviet Union from using nuclear weapons.

Tech companies place big bets on patents - The Boston Globe

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