The Tim Cook memo: line by line

I disagree that patenting was meant only for the small guys. Patenting was meant to make innovation happen and fast. Simple as that. Social welfare policies are designed for the small guy.

In any case how expensive is it to file a patent, or get a job with the company which has the patent and work with them.

The so called small guy you talk about does not give a damn about innovation. He wants to be the next Steve Jobs.

Let's admit it. Money is important for everyone. Apple, Samsung, Small guy, Big guy. Everyone.

What one can discuss is how to collect taxes from people and deploy that to support indie innovators(if may call them so) who want to fly solo.

(Shrug) A $100 bill lying on the ground will be picked up very quickly, by the original owner if no one else. That means that if you see $100 on the ground, chances are that it's not real. It might be a $1 or $10 bill that you've mistaken at first for $100. It might be counterfeit or play money. It might be someone playing the old "glue some cash to the pavement and laugh at/film people trying to pick it up" game. The chances that someone has actually misplaced a $100 bill in public, and that you are the first to come upon it, are very low indeed.

They convince you that they created some device specifically for you.

I don't know about you, but if the engineers don't do their job well, the marketers have no chance of making me believe that. Otherwise my house would be full of shiny gad.... wait, uh, OK, moving on to the next point....

The marketing budget numbers came out during this trial I believe, and they were staggering.

Larger than the marketing spend across the entire Android ecosystem?

The fact is that there are plenty of tech companies who spend more on marketing than Apple does, and who often have better ads, as well. Each of those companies has something in common: they sell less stuff than Apple does. Therefore, your dismissal of Apple as a "marketing" company, while not necessarily wrong, must be incomplete.

So when and how exactly are we supposed to complain? In a vacuum? When nothing bad is happening, just start writing letters about how awful the patent system is and hope somebody listens? Do you honestly think that would ever work? It's a ludicrous proposition.

If you want change, you have to illustrate why that change is needed. You do that by highlighting demonstrably problematic cases, and by showing that the parties involved are behaving in a fashion that is contrary to the public interest, yet legal, and thus changes to the laws are needed. That is how it works. If anybody thinks the patent system needs reform then this is exactly when they should put their effort into complaining, and they should absolutely be criticizing Apple for their actions. It is not just appropriate - it's the only way change will get achieved.

Right. But Amazon was wise. They could have seized major portions of the software patent landscape early on, they thought about going down the path Apple is on and they decided against it. In contrast to Cook's statements here, Bezos basically said software patents are not our future and other companies should follow our lead.

If you truly understod the patent system you'd realise it's a lot less "cut and dry" than you perceive it to be. Patent law with all its wonderful intricacies that many spend careers learning can get you to an issued patent. But an issued patent can't guarantee you anything, except the right to sue alleged infringers. It gives you no "right to a monopoly" only a right to sue. It gives you no right to manufacture or sell anything. Someone else might sue you you, regardless of your patent. That's not the patent office's problem.

Your issued patent is only as good as it holds up in litigation. And patent litigation is more or less a crap shoot. With high stakes.

The only way to determine the "validity" of a patent claim is to litigate it. And Federal Circuit decisions are not exactly "consistent" so as to be "predictable", to say the least. The end result is patent litigation is extraordinarily expensive and is to be to be feared, even when the patent claims being asserted are garbage.

The issue is not with the patent system in general. The issue is with how Apple is using the system.

There is nothing inherently wrong with patents or intellectal property.

The problem is with companies like Apple who think it is all some kind of game.

Again, the problem is not IP. IP is just rules.

The problem is Apple, specifically the people who run the company. The problem is the actions they take.

When nerds on the web discuss IP, unfortunately it ends up being employed as the proverbial "straw man". Nerds ignore the actions of Apple and instead debate IP. But IP is not a person, real or imaginary. IP makes no decisions. IP is just a concept. The decisions and the evil being done here are by _people_. Patent law (or any law) does not mandate that anyone has to behave like an a-hole. That is a decision Apple makes, not the drafters of patent laws.

But Apple thinks that just because they can afford to dump millions into legal fees, month after month, year after year, it gives them the justification to make life miserable for everyone else (forcing them to spend the same amounts or be forced out of the game).

Apple behaves like an a-hole. And everyone has to mimic them.

IP is not going to disappear. It's only going to grow. The reforms will have to change how it can be used.