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| The Skyhook vs. Google case form 2010 consolidated with recent filing and postponed a year. |
A strange thought comes to mind--this industry is evolving so rapidly, and more legal procedures have been put in place since 2010, and yet a patent infringement filed three years ago is still delayed another year. This patent war is even more about patent infringements: by delaying these court cases, you're also delaying the competitor's actions and therefore gaining benefit in profitability. It's all so tactical.
This really brings to light the fact that the patents wars aren't just about patent litigation anymore. Companies are using patents as resources for competitive advantage. IP isn't even entirely about securing the rights to your ideas anymore, but about keeping others out of your space, and often using them as legal tools to delay the course of your competitors. In this case, perhaps Google anticipated the hairy legal implications of its meddling in Skyhook's affairs, but it had done a cost-benefit analysis to realize that it would benefit from this more than it would take damage.
I think that delay of cases works to the benefit of the person being sued, they put off any possible injunctions for as long as possible. It makes sense for Google push off a case that could result in them losing. They even could hope to out spend their opponents in court and wine by default.
ReplyDeleteAgree here, but I think delaying is common tactics for large companies taking advantage on. For offense, like Jessica mentioned, they out spend their opponents. For defense, they change all their upcoming products to avoid infringement such that when a ban is issued, their infringed products are outdated.
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