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by joemullin
1892 days ago
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Many internet companies, including Google, have used patents only defensively (so far). However, there are plenty of tech companies that do assert patents offensively, including Apple, IBM, Qualcomm (famously), Oracle, and lots of others. |
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But Apple? The only patent suit I'm aware of that they initiated was against Samsung and this is a little more complicated.
First, it was primarily a design patent suit. I'm a little more sympathetic to design patents than software patents (which I'm 100% against). And, let's face it, Samsung did pretty much just rip off the iPhone. There were some non-design patents thrown in there too, that's true.
But the commenter I replied to suggested these tech companies were using patents to squash smaller competitors. And for most companies that isn't true. Even if you choose to include Apple in a list of companies that use patents offensively rather than defensively, Samsung isn't really a small competitor, so the point stands.