There isn’t a week that passes by without a patent lawsuit in the tech industry. This time it is the social networking site Facebook which is countersuing Yahoo on violation of 10 of its patents. Analysts view this move as retaliation from Facebook, after Yahoo sued the social networking giant last month on the same number of patents. This countersuit is not a surprise to many analysts, especially after Facebook expanded its portfolio after purchasing a total of 750 patents from IBM. Facebook has really decided to “fight fire with fire” as it acquires more ammunition in its arsenal.
The fight over a few patents seems rather childish. Both sides seemed to be filing these lawsuits with the sole aim of bringing down the other company. A software patent can be obtained for almost anything these days and hence it’s not surprising to see the sheer number of lawsuits. In fact many articles have joked about these patents being used as “nuclear stockpile” against their competitors. Patents have always represented a company’s intellectual property as well as its interest in innovation. In the recent past however, patents are only being used as a tool to sue smaller companies and thus make quick money.
Laws governing patents weren’t designed to deal with the rapidly changing modern software world. Inventing a method of generating new stories is no longer the same as inventing a new fuel injection system or discovering a new ultra light alloy that could revolutionize space travel. Software companies like Yahoo tend to get desperate in using patents as tools to bring down companies that enjoy majority of the market share. The only way to evade such a situation is to have your own stockpile of patents which will in turn help in negotiating settlements.
Patent lawsuits today are viewed as the tech industry’s description of mutual destruction. In fact many analysts predict that the increasing number of patent lawsuits can even make the whole SOPA controversy look like a walk in the park. There is always that point in time when a company decides to overrule most settlements and use the judicial system in bringing down their competitors over the simple idea that it came up with that notion first and its rivals are misusing the same. These lawsuits could even shake the foundations of organizations like the WTO. A patent crisis seems eminent given the way things are proceeding and the lack of political pressure into such matters.
