The Guardian ran an article on Monday 31 Oct 2011 which continues the coverage of the mobile phone litigation wars that have broken out over the last 18 months.
It contained this fascinating graphic put together by George Kokkinidis the founder of Design Language.
Let me reiterate what this shows. Each line is a lawsuit, arrows pointing to the Defendents. Dotted lines represent recently concluded lawsuits. Light gray indicates patent holding companies.
The basic premise of the Guardian article was that the new entrants to the market – mainly Google/Android (who are posing the biggest threat at the moment) have built their operating system (which they give away) on the “shoulders” of the established players who have spent years investing in R&D to develop the principle characteristics of the products in the market over many years and who have protected this investment with patents.
The Guardian article linked to an interview conducted by the San Francisco Chronicle – SF Gate – in which Microsofts’s Horacio Gutiérrez, deputy general counsel in charge of Microsoft’s intellectual property group. He argues that the licence feuding is simply a normal part of the shake out in a new innovative market in which the leading players are sorting out among themselves who owns what rights and after a while it is all going to settle down.
Google’s view (from the Guardian article) is different. Kent Walker, Google’s chief lawyer argues that the smart phone industry is using patents in an arms race that is “gumming up the works of innovation” and he calls upon the US Government to rein in their use. My take on this is that I guess it depends on which end of the process you find yourself on.
So is this all a storm in a teacup?
Let us not lose sight of the wood for the trees. Lets look at the Strategic Landscape across which these legal battles are taking place. The examples given are far from exhaustive.
- Operating systems: Android/iOS/Windows are the dominant players (Nokia’s Symbian is dead)
- Handsets – Apple/Samsung/HTC/Nokia/Motorola(Google)/RIM/Sony
- Mobile Advertising – Google/Microsoft/Apple
- Apps – Apple/Google/Microsoft/RIM
- Media – Music/Books/Movies – Apple/Amazon
- Tablet Computers – Apple/Samsung/RIM/Microsoft/Amazon – HP recently pulled out.
These are the strategic struggles that are being waged. The smart phone market is seen as one of the major areas of growth for the future as computing goes mobile and with 4G just over the hill, the means by which we will access the pervasive internet in the future is blurring and battles won in the smartphone arena are relevant to all areas of mobile computing.
Today the range of devices ranges from the iPod Nano up to the MacBook Pro. You can expect innovation to continue to bring us more complex and powerful devices which will continue to fill in the gaps between the different device categories that currently exist. And we haven’t even started the battle over the TV space yet.
I believe that patents are simply a weapon in the defensive and offensive armouries of these companies. Google acquired Motorola Mobility to enhance its playbook. I think it is going to much more interesting to see who is making money from all this and I do not think that the end game is about extracting royalities but about having profitable market positions in the segments I have highlighted above.
I am indebted to George Kokkinidis for his permission to use his infographic. You can find his original post here and it is also the doorway to other stimulating visualisations.
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