Well, it appears that the smart phone wars that ramped up over the last six months have bursted into the first live battle of this war. Apple is suing HTC over patent infringements for it’s new Android and Microsoft Windows Mobile phones.
Personally, I find the suit more interesting from a market perspective than from any legal wranglings. It is interesting that Apple choose HTC and not Motorola (maker of the Droid), Google (Android OS and Nexus One partner), or even Microsoft (MS Windows Mobile OS). The look is that Apple went after a very prolific yet smaller company in hopes of making an example of them. If they tried going toe to toe with one of the big boys they really might be in for a fight. Given, Apple is a large company but they would definitely be picking a fight with more seasoned and prepared adversaries had the picked one of the other brands.
Apple is trying to slow the attack on the iPhone. They are trying to slow down the Android and Windows Mobile surge and protect their cash cow. Not saying that they don’t have patents… they do. Some of their patents are kinda silly though. I truly believe that technology is pushing the limits of what the patent system can handle. Not all ideas should be considered novel enough to patent. Amazon tried the same game some years back with their “1-Click Checkout” patent. It wasn’t really a unique thing but they patented it and then fought about it in court. The patent laws were designed in a time when things didn’t move quite as quickly, markets weren’t globalized, and information was as free-flowing. The system probably needs to have a serious review in light of the circumstances that exist in today’s market.
I truly believe that if Apple views this as a strategy for limiting competition they are going to run into the same tidal wave that the record industry has been trying to swim against. In the world of technology and the Internet, the waves are very powerful. They are hard to contain.
We’ll see if Apple has any success with this method.
What say you?
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