Acacia’s 27 New Patent Portfolios Just Tip of the Iceberg

The company also has been successful in defending its intellectual property turf. On January 5, U.S. District Court Judge Rudi Brewster sided with Qualcomm by issuing a preliminary injunction against Maxim Integrated Products. Qualcomm accused Maxim of developing computer chips for cell phones based on stolen trade secrets; essentially, someone got hold of a confidential document that outlined Qualcomm’s roadmap for developing new chips and then passed it around within the company. As a result of the judge’s ruling, Qualcomm gets to write an injunction against Maxim. While the judge did request that attorneys for Qualcomm get input from Maxim’s attorneys when writing it, but the two sides still disagree on whether Maxim should be banned from selling two chips that are set to go to market but have been accused of being based on stolen intellectual property.

To avoid such conflict over patent infringement, some companies are choosing to instead join forces in the hopes of spurring innovation. On December 14, Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics finalized and announced an agreement to share nearly 24,000 patents on technologies including data compression, DVD, and flash memory chips. Each company is giving up access to more than 90% of their respective patent portfolios, although the agreement excludes what are referred to as "differentiation technology patents" that will remain the sole property of each company, like the technology behind Sony’s PlayStation 2. This move follows in the footsteps of a spate of patent infringement litigation between Japanese and South Korean electronics manufacturers, including Toshiba’s suit in November against Hynix Semiconductor related to memory chips, and Matsushita Electric Industrial’s legal action against LG Electronics regarding plasma panels.

Asia isn’t the only area of the world embroiled in the twists and turns of patent law. The European Union is currently pushing an initiative often referred to as the "software patent directive" which would allow companies to register patents for software that makes a "technical contribution," like improving the clarity of a monitor. What has sparked a fierce debate, though, is that some countries feel the law’s wording leaves room to allow companies to win patent protection for technology concepts like an on-screen waste basket. (This was a major point of contention in Apple vs. Microsoft.) "They say that they don’t patent software as such, and by that they mean not to grant patents on program code," says Florian Muller, campaign manager for NoSoftwarePatents.com, a campaign against the legalization of software patents. "However, no one wants a patent on program code because you get can get copyright on it, for free, for 50 or more years beyond your lifetime (a patent expires after 20 years max), without having to file, and without having to disclose. What people really want in terms of software patents are patents on broad concepts, such as the idea of a progress bar on the screen."

The software patent directive would have made it through the EU earlier this summer, with 89 votes in favor of the directive (88 was the required qualified majority). Due to a new vote-weighting system that came into place Nov. 1, however, there are now 216 votes in favor, less than the new qualified majority requirement of 232. Poland has been particularly vocal in its opposition to this directive, especially after consulting with representatives of Microsoft, Novell, and Sun Microsystems who confirmed that this software directive makes all software potentially patentable. "On the bottom line, [software patents] create more injustice than justice because of the way they’re used," says Muller. "A single patent is not too useful unless you’re a productless ‘patent troll.’ If you have products of your own, then a giant organization with tens of thousands of patents can sue you, and you can’t even research whether you have a conflict with any of those [patents] because automated searches don’t help with software patents (unlike pharmaceuticals, where there is a Latin nomenclature in place). So if you’re a little guy and produce real products, not just lawsuits over patents, then you’re at the mercy of the big corporations who can drive you out of business with their patents but that do cross-licensing deals with each other."