Sunday reading: patent roundup
Ryan Whitwam: How
the Apple-Samsung case could push OEMs closer to
Google and stock Android. You could make an
argument that a company might flip out and bail on
the Android platform, but I think it’s more likely
that it would seek safety in the shade of a monolithic
Google experience.
Jean-Marc Valin and Timothy B. Terriberry: It’s
Opus, it rocks and now it’s an audio codec
standard! Opus is the first state of the art,
free audio codec to be standardized....Opus is the
result of a collaboration between many organizations,
including the IETF, Mozilla, Microsoft (through
Skype), Xiph.Org, Octasic, Broadcom, and Google.
Judge Richard A. Posner: Do
patent and copyright law restrict competition and
creativity excessively? The problem of
excessive patent protection is at present best
illustrated by the software industry. This is a
progressive, dynamic industry rife with invention. But
the conditions that make patent protection essential
in the pharmaceutical industry are absent.
Prof. Gary S. Becker: Reforming
the Patent System Toward a Minimalist System.
It has long been recognized that patents impose
costs on society since patents keep out competition,
so that the monopoly power of patent holders enables
them to raise prices and lower outputs. However,
until recent years many other costs of the patent
system received little attention, including
paradoxically that this system might in fact
discourage innovations.
Timothy B. Lee: How
a rogue appeals court wrecked the patent
system. No institution is more
responsible for the recent explosion of patent
litigation in the software industry, the rise
of patent trolls, and the proliferation of
patent thickets than the United States Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Followup: The
Federal Circuit, Not the Supreme Court,
Legalized Software Patents. Bonus link: Public
vs. Private is a Spectrum, Not a Dichotomy
Jordan Weissmann: The
Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them).
[P]atent protections never stay small and
tidy. Instead, entrenched players like intellectual
property lawyers who make their living filing lawsuits
and old, established corporations that want to keep
new players out of their markets lobby to expand the
breadth of patent rights. And as patent rights get
stronger, they take a serious toll on the economy,
including our ability to innovate.