I couldn’t help but to laugh. Fractus S.A is actually sueing Samsung, LG, RIM, Pantech, Kyocera, Palm, HTC, Sharp, UTScarcom and Sanyo for infringing on nine of their patents. What’s this all about then? Antennas! That’s right, Fractus is apparently a pioneer in developing internal antennas for cellphones.
Fractus holds over 80 patents worldwide, including over 30 United States patents. “We are grateful that Fractus has chosen us to represent them in enforcing these patents,” said Max Tribble of Susman Godfrey L.L.P., lead lawyer for Fractus. “It is very brave of Fractus to fight against these cell phone companies, many of whom knew about Fractus and its technology yet still continued to infringe. Fractus’s inventions have added tremendous value to both the cell phone user and manufacturer.”
Patents were intended to promote, not prevent. By patenting and disclosing your invention, it would be put to public use, but you would keep the title and credit as being the inventor. Today it’s used to make money by patenting chemical formulas and pushing the prices through the roof, like we just recently witnessed with the swine flu vaccine. It’s used to take care of the competition in IT, by stating “oops, it seems that your fancy little product there infringes on one of our patents. so you can either pay us $$$ or we will see you in court”. And the outcome is often the acquisition of the little company by the big one.
It’s amazing how stupid mankind is at times.
Tags: patents
