NYT: Patent litigation is hurting innovation

The New York Times talk about patent litigation, say its hurting innovation.

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In case you didn't already realize that all of these patent wars between various companies was hurting not just consumers, and businesses, but it's also hurting innovation. This innovation stops you from getting better, thinner, more exotic products, and now The New York Times has chimed in with a piece on the subject.

NYT: Patent litigation is hurting innovation | TweakTown.com

The Times' piece covers the fact that big companies usually strong arm small start-ups with an extensive patent portfolio that usually ends up with an acquisition, and if the smaller company isn't acquired they're sued.

The Times' piece also reveals that the smartphone industry spent a whopping $20 billion (or so) on patent litigation in the past two years. Companies such as Apple and Google have spent more money on legal battles than research and development in the past twelve months. Splitting this up, we find Apple spending around $3 billion on R&D last year, with another $4 billion to be spend this year. Those numbers may seem large, but they are far less than most other technology companies.

Where it gets juicy is that an unnamed Google source told The New York Times that Apple love these legal battles:

Sometimes they're asking for money. Then they say we have to promise to not copy aspects of the iPhone. And whenever we get close to an agreement, it all changes again.

Our feeling is they don't really want this to end. As long as everyone is distracted by these trials, the iPhone continues to sell.

NEWS SOURCES:techspot.com, nytimes.com

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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