Is Patent System Corrupt?

If you've even casually read issued "process" patents issued over the last couple of decades, you might have the same reaction others do: these processes should not be patentable. Some of you will have been taught that the laudable purpose of a patent is to protect and reward intellectual property that takes a specific form and implementation. Patents, you were taught, cannot be issued for "ideas."

The problem is that the patent system appears to have gotten sloppy at best, corrupt at worst. "Corrupt" not in the sense of dishonest, but in the sense of "decayed and rotting."

Firms have their own financial interests to consider when making public pronouncements, and when Google chairman Eric Schmidt slammed regulators and patent trolls at Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, there was a mix of serious Google vested interests and serious higher public policy purposes at play.

“All the patent fights that are interesting are done in one district in Texas, how this is possible is beyond me, it just doesn’t feel right” Schmidt said. “With the device revolution coming, I fear patents will slow it down.”

He said that most patents issued in the 1990s and 2000s were overly broad. Many would agree.

Google’s Eric Schmidt lays the smack down on patents

HP Touchpad a Deal at $99?

Lots of people obviously thought the HP TouchPad was a steal at $99. Is it?

AT&T Lawsuit Might Have Broader Implications

The lawsuit seeking to block AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile USA shows a more aggressive antitrust stance by the U.S. Justice Department that limits prospects for other big telecommunications deals, antitrust analysts said.

Translation: It might not be possible for Sprint to merge with T-Mobile USA, or Verizon Wireless to buy Sprint, either.

That doesn't mean, in hindsight, that such a policy is always an optimal approach long-term. Think back to June 2000, when WorldCom wanted to acquire Sprint, a $152 billion deal. That combination of two long-distance concerns was seen to have undesirable anti-competitive concerns.

WorldCom went bankrupt and Sprint no longer is primarily a long-distance company. Would that merger have done much other than delay WorldCom's collapse? Probably not.

The point is that markets change. Long distance has for all intents and purposes disappeared as a discrete business for most providers of communications services, with the exception of small specialists such as Skype, which have huge traffic, but relatively small revenue. At least for the moment, though, some observers think the Department of Justice objection might make any significant mergers among the biggest four providers impossible.

Henry Levine, a partner at Washington-based law firm Levine, Blaszak, Block & Boothby LLP, which represents large companies in telecommunications cases.

“It’s a line in the sand,” he said. The suit signals “you cannot buy one of the major players in the market,” he said. A merger between number three wireless carrier and number-four T-Mobile might raise similar competition concerns, Levine said.

AT&T Lawsuit Marks U.S. ‘Line in the Sand’ for Telecoms - Bloomberg:

Mobile Search is Highly Contextual

Mobile devices are viewed, rightly, as an unusually important platform for targeted information because the use of mobiles is highly contextual, not just personalized. Mobile searches also are highly social, with results often being shared with others.

People often search for local information (a restaurant, store, gas station, or attraction) from their mobile device, research conducted by Microsoft shows. In a survey of 929 mobile searchers at a large software company, local searches tend to be highly contextual, influenced by geographic features, temporal aspects, and the searcher’s social context.

While location was reported to be very important, respondents looked for information about places close to their current location about 40 percent of the time. Users often were in transit at the time of a search 68 percent of our searchers) and wanted information related to their destination (27 percent of searchers); en route to their destination (12 percent) or near their destination (12 percent).

Additionally, 63 percent of participants’ mobile local searches took place within a social context and were discussed with someone else.

Mobile Search is Highly Contextual

Mobile and Video Emerge As Significant Online Ad Platforms in the U.K.

Mobile and video advertising is gaining traction, reaching a sizeable percentage of the total U.K. audience, comScore says. In June 2011, 63.1 percent of online video viewers in the United Kingdom were exposed to video ads. Among the total number of smartphone users in the same time period, 25 percent recalled seeing an ad while browsing the Internet or using an application on their devices. In comparison, 95 percent of fixed line Internet users were exposed to online display advertising.

Mobile and Video Emerge As Significant Online Ad Platforms in the UK

Online Advertising Reach in the United Kingdom March 2011 vs June 2011 Total Audience* - Home & Work Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix**, Video Metrix** and MobiLens***
	Online Ad Audience
	Mar-11		Jun-11		% Change in Unique Audience
	Unique Audience (000)	% Reach	Unique Audience (000)	% Reach
Exposed
Fixed Line Internet Audience: Exposed to Display Ads	39,683	96.1%	40,020	95.3%	0.8%
Online Video Audience: Exposed to Video Ads	18,446	54.9%	21,233	63.1%	15.1%
Recalled
Smartphone Audience: Recall Seeing Web/App Ads	4,240	21.4%	5,415	25.4%	27.7%

Mobile App Consumption Now Exceeds Desktop and Mobile Web Consumption

Daily time spent by users with mobile apps now surpasses desktop and mobile web consumption, Flurry has reported. Mobile app use rivals desktop

Looking at mobile Web usage, users spend more than 2.5 hours a day interacting with Web content on their mobile devices.

When will mobile usage exceed desktop?

Peak mobile engagement with Web resources seems to mirror that of desktop PCs, namely that usage peaks in the early evening.

Like PC usage, which occurs nearly all hours when people are awake, mobile Web usage happens all day long. Usage pattern similar on desk, mobile

Odds of AT&T Getting Deal Approval Drop to 40%

Barclays Capital now says the odds of a successful AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile USA at about 40 percent, down from 75 percent.


Only a couple of days before the Department of Justice lawsuit opposing the deal, analyst sentiment that the AT&T purchase of T-Mobile USA will win regulatory clearance had dropped, at least among 32 analysts polled by Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analysts Rebecca Arbogast and David Kaut.

The observers rated their expectation for approval on a scale of 0-to-100 percent, and the average of their answers fell to 50 percent in August from 55 percent in July, the analysts said. Odds drop

Odds of deal approval drop to 40% from 75%