A recent post on this blog by Gaston Kroub discussed the ongoing patent war between Sonos and Google. The war started when Sonos accused Google of stealing its technology and infringing its patents. Since then, the war has broadened to multiple fronts. In one interesting twist, Google commenced its suit against Sonos asserting its own patents. Gaston’s commentary provides some useful insights for why Google would do this from strategic perspective. But in this post, we raise another question: is Google a patent troll?
Read MoreUnified Patents recently released statistics on patent lawsuit filings. The statistics show patent filings to be trending downwards fairly significantly from a peak in 2015. Yet, the statistics also show that the individual inventor, asserting his or her own patent, is behind many patent suits. Does that matter?
Read MoreFacebook ($FB) recently sued Blackberry ($BB) in the Northern District of California. The move appears to be the latest salvo in the patent war heating up between the companies. Yet, there are a few noteworthy aspects of Facebook’s suit.
Read MoreThis week’s edition of The Economist addresses an interesting spin on the prospects of budding Silicon Valley startups living under the shadow of Big Tech. The fantasy of getting bought is being supplanted by the reality of getting taken out. The Economist argues that startups now live within a kill zone maintained by Big Tech—either sell out on our terms, or we’ll co-opt your technology and launch our own product. While antitrust may be one solution to give more leverage to innovators, what about patents?
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