The last few months have been dominated by one underlying theme, patents. The big players in technology have raided their finances (I can hear financial directors groaning) and have acquired patents to protect their assets and technology from others.
One storyline that has not slowed is the spat between Samsung and Apple. It has now been over a year and it seems that neither party are any closer to giving in to the other. I would love to know the amount of words that have been written about it and what the legal costs have been. A safe guesstimate for both questions would be – thousands of words and millions of dollars. Last week Apple accused Samsung of destroying evidence and Samsung has also stepped up its fight in blocking the sale of Apple devices in various parts of the world. The point I am trying to make is that the 2 heavyweights have thrown many man hours into this fight and without any physical violence have ensured that the technology world is severely divided.
It seems things are now progressing to a solution as a judge in San Francisco has asked both Tim Cook and Choi Gee-sung to attend a court supervised-mediation session. Anyone associated with technology would obviously pay to be able to hear or see this in person. Can you imagine the conversations between these parties? “You created a product that is similar to mine and did not even bother checking to see whether patents were breached” etc.
I think everyone that has an interest in technology and in particular consumer electronics would like this drama to stop. At the moment it feels like all the CEO’S of these technology companies are actors in a day time soapy. Build products and blow your consumers away, it really is that simple.
