US Dominates Europe in Mobile Development Patent Race
Mobile's skyrocketing climb to the forefront of software development projects and the headlines that report on them have been ongoing for a few years now. It’s hardly surprising, given the number of mobile device options out there and the ever-increasing number of apps being churned out every day.
What is surprising is the recent news that a quarter of all patents filed in the United States in 2013 will be related to mobile development. AllThingsD.com reports that number was only 5 percent in 2001. What’s even more interesting is that mobile patents make up only 10 percent of all patents filed in Europe, another hotbed of software development.
These numbers don’t entirely add up to what could be considered a “victory” by the United States over Europe; quality in software is still more highly valued than quantity. Ricardo Bilton brings up this point in a recent VentureBeat article.
But while the increase in mobile patents is a good sign that the mobile industry won’t stop growing anytime soon, the news here isn’t all good. A big question on many minds is how many of the patents filed this year will be poorly conceived, overly broad, or plain dumb.
Climbing right alongside the number of patents filed is the number of lawsuits regarding those patents. 2012 saw the infamous Apple vs. Samsung battle, and although Samsung lost the initial battle, they’re dominating the patents-filed battle, for what that's worth. With high-value licensing fees as the prize, TechCrunch notes “mobile patent litigation has, for better or worse, proven to be lucrative for those who win."
Patent lawsuits extend far beyond the United States and Europe. Ericsson and Micromax went to court this week in India over wireless technologies and join a list of many of the world’s largest mobile device manufacturers, including “Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Sony, HTC and LG to name a few.”
In a humorous, yet accurately confusing, depiction of the mess created by the number of patents filed and their respective lawsuits, the video below explains the situation beautifully.
