As reported previously on the sale of Nortel patents link here, six of Google's rivals most importantly, Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion worked together to make a combined bid and won Antitrust officials probing sale of patents to Google's rivals"> link here. Now, "Federal antitrust enforcers are scrutinizing whether Google, often accused of abusing its Web search power, is facing an unfair coalition of companies that could block its popular Android mobile phone software, according to a source close to the matter."

Unusual for it, the Washington Post's report goes on to raise questions about the wisdom and legality of the increasingly dysfunctional patent system "where even the most amorphous ideas can be rubber-stamped by the government and protected for years."

It goes on, "...companies are increasingly arming themselves with ever-growing patent portfolios to initiate or shield themselves from costly lawsuits.'

"The result, ...companies with formidable patent portfolios can use them as cudgels against rivals, while those with fewer patents risk being eaten alive in court."

"For years tech companies did not go after one another in patent lawsuits. But that has changed recently as the battle to dominate the mobile phone space has grown fiercer. Google's Android operating system has rocketed to the top slot as the most popular in the world, just ahead of Apple's and RIM's BlackBerry."

"The battle to beat Android has already turned into a legal bonanza. Apple is suing HTC, Samsung and Motorola, all makers of phones with the Android platform. Oracle is seeking up to $6.1 billion in a patent lawsuit against Google, claiming Android infringes upon Oracle's Java patents. And Microsoft is suing Motorola over its Android line."

Stay tuned, but there is (some?) hope when the Post can actually be critical of this tragi-comedy in which the United States commits hara kiri by a thousand cuts, in the slow motion expansion of patent monopolies.

Kevin Drum says: So then, a question for people who think that software patents are out of control: what should the rule be? No patents at all on software or business processes? Probably not. But if patents aren't flatly banned on business processes, is there some kind of rule that would raise the bar in a reasonable way on just how novel something has to be to deserve a patent? I hear a lot of complaints about software and business process patents, and I'm sympathetic to them. But exactly what kind of reform would improve things?

"No patents at all on software or business processes? Probably not." Interesting that he doesn't explain why not. In the case of software patents the case for getting rid of them entirely is clear. The work of James Bessen leaves no scope for doubt.

What collecting societies really do.

The political economy of IP is very revealing. In Steal This Idea, I described how the US support for copyrights shifted when the US became a stronger producer from being a stronger net consumer.

When the economy weakens, IP is often used as a means to ratchet up profits.

As far as business methods are concerned, it began with State Street -- a banking patent. Now that others are able to challenge the financial moguls, finance turns against protection.

The rank opportunism of IP and the political hacks who support the various interest groups is appalling.

Columbia Law Professor Ronald Mann has a round-up of how the U.S. Supreme Court has looked upon the lower Federal Circuit's point-of-view when it comes to recent patent law decisions.

It is well worth a read here:

http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/07/ronald-mann-reviews-the-patent-cases-of-ot2010/

Felix Salmon link here goes after Andrew Ross Sorkin for his attack in the New York Times on the banks that successfully used their lobbying power to get Congress to exempt them from business-method patents link here. Sorkin's beef is that the banks have enormous political power, based on their political contributions, while defending such patents as having been successfully blessed by our courts.

Salmon agrees that the banks have great political power but emphasizes the whole questionable field of business-method patents and comes out opposed. More broadly, he objects that we have too many questionable patents and way too much litigation that drives up costs, while adding no benefit to consumers.

It is nice to have another blogger on this side of the argument. More and more are joining the chorus.

APPLE has now received a patent for two fingered gestures on a touchscreen according to this link here and to a much more extensive set of claims by another interpretation link here. For the rest of us, it would appear there is loads of prior art that would preclude granting such a patent but the Patent Office seems unable to resist granting them and extending the monopoly farther and farther. But why should two finger gestures get patented while one finger ones don't?

The broader significance is that the big players in the industry can be challenged, as Google has done, but it looks as if that may be the last. The big guys have circled the wagons and will win unless the patent law gets changed. Chances?

If you read either the newspapers or the business press, you still won't really be sure about the details of Nortel's sale of its patents, but apparently some were sold to a consortium of Microsoft, Apple, etc. and some were sold to individual companies link here. This is being played as a defeat for Google which made an initial bid and subsequent competitive bids but dropped out after the price rose above $4 billion. It might equally be viewed as a victory for Google, having made arch-competitors pay far more than they dreamed of having to.

The real losers here were us consumers who will pay more for things produced under the patents. We will also see less inter-company competition and less innovation. This further cements the already long standing position of the incumbents, which will also restrict innovation.

Still think patents promote innovation?

from kottke.org

"I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense." -- Henry Ford

'Aside from the unprotectable ideas of (1) brandishing a blow dryer as a weapon, and (2) the characters' fighting poses, there is no plausible basis for a reasonable jury to find that the parties' respective expressions of the concept of a...crime-fighting hairdresser are substantially similar".

So holds the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in affirming the dismissal of a copyright claim here [PDF]:

Cabell v. Sony Pictures