ATTN Apple Fanboys: How would you justify this?

[Bricklayer]

Re: ATTN Apple Fanboys: How would you justify this?

Patent applications are insanely cheap and Apple is not hurting. They have no reason to hold back on just patenting what they can ship now.

A company that has to hold back on patenting something because of a recession is pretty much quite literally going out of business next week.

Not to pull the whole "I work in the industry so what I say has more merit than what you say" thing, but the fact of the matter is, most of our clients made significant cuts in IP during the recession, and business has not returned to pre-housing-crash levels yet. Costs for patent apps include much much more than filing fees. You've got IP personnel, legal fees, official action fees, maintenance fees, etc. Relative to new capital equipment costs, it's not a lot of cash, but when you're filing hundreds of apps a year, it adds up. Also, it would stand to reason that, during a recession, every department would face budget cuts, and not just certain departments. If the legal department has to cut its budget by 10%, they're going to be more selective about what they file. It's just that simple.

[Mhurron]

Re: ATTN Apple Fanboys: How would you justify this?

Apple retains legal staff, they're already paying them. Apple is still turning record profits, as in 2010 third quarter profits of $3 billion plus.

To file a patent might cost $2000-3000. Most of that is legal fees, which are not the same when you have legal staff already on hand. If a company depends on generating new IP via patents and they can not afford this every time they have a patentable idea they are going out of business.

None of that means anything because Apple is still making billions in profit. The company is still GROWING. They aren't feeling pressure to cut back.

Honestly now, how many of your clients monetize any patent the way Apple, IBM or Microsoft do? Guess what, all three are still churning out patents at the same rate they were before.

[Solymir]

Re: ATTN Apple Fanboys: How would you justify this?

Reminds me of the scene in The Dark Knight where all of the cell phones are tapped.

[Nandito]

Re: ATTN Apple Fanboys: How would you justify this?

Next thing you know, your phone turns into a zip gun once it locates your heartbeat.

[Aeni]

Re: ATTN Apple Fanboys: How would you justify this?

Hm... maybe I'll stick to my dumbphone for a bit longer and wait to see if Verizon is stupid enough to jump on board with such a concept (what am I saying, of course they are). I'm eligible for a Droid in a few weeks, but this worries me.

You know you can root and/or rewrite the ROM, right? Still functions properly as well. Did that with my HTC Aria.

---------- Post added at 01:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:38 PM ----------

Depending on how long you've been on the internet and how many family and friends are on too, there is a lot of information out there about you already. I know that I had a stalking issue with a guy that knew me from a chatroom. I didn't give him any information but a family member that used the same website unwittingly did. Its not just what you put out there.

To add to this ... Google also stated a week ago that this "internet generation" of young people are condemned for life. Apparently what they revealed about themselves to the world will never cease to exist in the future. So it's a very ominous warning for people to watch what they put on the internet about themselves.

[Bricklayer]

Re: ATTN Apple Fanboys: How would you justify this?

I appreciate your points, and Apple is an exceptional (exception to the rule) company, so they may not be hurting as much as most companies. I suspect their patent filing hasn't decreased too much.

Still, there will always be an internal lawyer acting at least as a preliminary filter to avoid non-statutory ideas (think an algorithm that you could perform in your head without using a computer), ideas that are already out there, or things that would be too obvious. And, I still think a firm will weigh how closely the idea is related to the company's core business as part of the review process prior to filing.

To file a patent might cost $2000-3000.

If I remember correctly, USPTO fees alone will cost that much. I've provided a link if you want to check it out. Ok, yes, the first 3.5 years alone cost $2600 (assuming no reexaminations).

Hiring a legal staff will probably cost more than going with an outside attorney, not the other way around, especially considering you have to pay salary ($150-200k), benefits, bonuses, and options to the internal guy. The internal staff is usually more concerned with how to use their patents, as opposed to actually drafting/prosecuting patents. Drafting (not filing) of one patent should run anywhere from a couple thousand to as much as ten thousand. This does not include responses to official actions, which usually run in the thousands as well, and you may have quite a few, depending on how hard you want to negotiate with the PTO for your broad claims. Drafting and prosecution could easily run upwards of $10000/case. So, all total, the patent alone may run $12,500 or more.

If you file 200 patents in a year (not a liberal estimate by any measure), and 60% get allowed, your costs for those patents alone may run over $1,000,000. Maybe that's a drop in the bucket for Apple. They may recover some of that in licensing fees, but most of these guys use patents for defensive purposes, rather than offensive. I guess you could say their patents reduce competition, thereby increasing market share, and profits, but that's very hard to quantify.

If a company depends on generating new IP via patents and they can not afford this every time they have a patentable idea they are going out of business.

This is simply not true. Companies don't just file "patentable" ideas (else why the 60% allowance rate?). They file lots of garbage as well. In a recession, economies of scale and margins start to tighten, which means companies do have to make cuts. Where do you think they will cut? Maybe they'll stop filing garbage ideas (interestingly, it didn't stop Apple in this case)? Many ideas are not patentable (not just talking about non-statutory), and some are not closely related to actual products. These are the first to get cut, in that order of course. As I conceded above, Apple may not be in this position (yet). However, not all companies have Apple's margins and sales volume. Foxconn's margins are garbage, but they still file patents, and they're still in business (with no indication they are struggling).

Getting back to the point, maybe Apple isn't seriously considering going through with this kind of technology. But, them filing a patent for it means they're more serious about it than if they didn't file. Of course, this is Apple. Normal rules currently don't apply to them.