HTC has already been extorted by Microsoft and now it is Apple which wants to extort HTC because Android is winning (see earlier links digests). As noted yesterday, Google promises to help HTC, but according to this, Google is looking into joining the patents cartel after losing the Nortel bid (Google does not deny this after an approach from the media). "Nowhere was that more evident than in the bidding for Nortel's 6,000 patents and patent applications," says CNET, "which cover wireless, data networking, optical, and voice technologies, among others. The bidding drew fierce competition, which drove up the price, and ultimately ended with the $4.5 billion winning bid by a consortium that included Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and Sony."

"The only reasonable solution is to educate the public about the harms of software patents and put an end to those."We need to tell Google to fight against software patents, not acquire them. Who is doing the thinking at Google these days, the lawyers or the engineers? The real solution is to eliminate software patents, preventing incidents such as this: "Patent concerns are apparently pushing Chinese phone vendors away from Google's Android operating system and toward Windows Phone 7. Huawei and ZTE plan to adopt Microsoft's smartphone operating system when the forthcoming "Mango" upgrade is released, according to a DigiTimes report." It seems more like an anecdote and not part of a general trend. But either way, how would having software patents help Google in this case? It would not. The only reasonable solution is to educate the public about the harms of software patents and put an end to those. Tell senior/high-profile Android staff like Tim Bray [tbray@textuality.com] and Chris DiBona [cdibona@google.com] to stop playing with patents and instead playing against them (I have mailed them myself). These people are engineers and managers, not lawyers. Google would only increase the value of software patents by buying some, so now is the time to pressure Google to reconsider its strategy. ⬆