In the telecommunications world, lawsuits and patents are common topics as the technology at play in consumer and enterprise devices can provide the gateway to global dominance for a single company. With that dominance is a requirement to defend critical intellectual properties, effectively demonstrating ownership and valid patents. Fortunately, telcos do not have to learn to navigate the complications on their own. TMC (News - Alert) is offering a Synopsis Under IP/Patents Telecom Sourcing Conference (SUITs), providing attendees with a roadmap for awareness and protection of individual and company patents and intellectual property stored in the Patent Eco System.

In preparation of this event, TMC’s Rich Tehrani recently spoke with Robert Johnson, Inventor and Strategist with AmelioWave, to get his insight on precautions telcos should take, including keeping accurate records. He also warned that the biggest trend in this space is the increase in litigation over patents, as well as the increase in patent applications. The increase in application has certainly stalled the already slow application process and created opportunities for the provision of misinformation. While Johnson doesn’t believe there is an inherent difference in patents for on-premise technology versus that in the cloud, the biggest patent he has seen in the last year was for Apple’s IPTV (News - Alert) solution structure. 



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The patent wars have definitely served to educate the industry, according to Johnson, while also demonstrating their inherent weaknesses. As the patent war continues between Samsung (News - Alert) and Apple, Johnson believes it is one of the most interesting due in part to the disparity in outcomes in different jurisdictions and the size of Apple’s recent award. Johnson will be serving on the panel, Guidelines for the Patent Landscape and the Monetizing Licensing Rights at the SUITS event, which will also include IP Law & Policy Changes Surrounding the Art Work, Patent Aggregator Wars, and Where are You in the Patent Process?

Check out the full interview below:

1.       What are the best precautions telecos can take in order to better prepare themselves to defend their critical intellectual properties? The first thing anyone can do to secure and defend their critical IP is to start keeping accurate records. Every engineer or technical person should be carrying a notebook to every meeting, taking notes, dating them, and having someone verify them with a signature. This is a “secret” discipline that is still being taught to some engineers in some engineering schools, but its use is no longer widespread. There are higher-tech solutions available for a cost, but this low-tech solution is the most cost-effective way to ensure you’re tracking your critical IP.

2.       Patents in the telecom space are rapidly expanding and evolving, what do you see as the biggest trends happening in the industry that are driving the transformation of the market that advanced tech/telecom patents are causing? The trend in the tech/telco space is towards increased litigation over patents (generally brought by patent holders) and increased patent applications, which has resulted in a fractured patent landscape. Granted patent applications are becoming narrower as applications have exploded, potentially splitting innovations between competitors that are not cooperating, stifling innovation, which is the opposite of the goals of the patent system. Fair use royalties instead of injunctions would go a long way to ameliorating this problem.

3.       What is the impact from the patent wars? What are the obvious or noticeable differences between telco and mobile patent wars. There’s been an increase in patent applications from both the protectionist and opportunist perspectives, which has only served to slow down the patent application process even more than it already had been. In addition, it appears that folks have started attempting to “hijack” the patent application process, by using different terminology from known prior art and then not citing that prior art in the hopes that the overburdened patent application process will miss the prior art and issue an indefensible patent, which are still valuable in the court of public opinion.

4.       Are there challenges associated with the patenting of cloud technology versus premise-based technology?If anything, moving things to the cloud opens up opportunity for new innovations to enable “premise-like” functionality from the cloud. I don’t see any significant difference between cloud-based vs. premise-based innovations from a patentability perspective.

5.       In your opinion, what are the top three biggest patents that have been awarded in the technology space over the last year? The biggest one I’ve seen granted in the past year was for Apple’s IPTV solution architecture. It’s not big because of the innovation it purports to protect, but rather for the way in which it was brought to folks’ attention in the industry. Apple has effectively used it as a public relations coup and as a trial balloon for their IPTV efforts. It’s become a tool of marketing and not engineering.

6.       As becomes the challenge in many sectors of the technology industry, education can sometimes be an obstacle. What is the biggest misconception in terms of how companies can protect their patents and intellectual properties? If anything, the patent wars have served to educate the industry. In the “dark ages” of patent lore, patents had an almost magical quality, but now they’ve been laid bare in the press. And while there is a much clearer idea in the industry now just how weak and unhelpful patents can be, there’s still a lot of ignorance of the patent process itself (e.g. how long it takes, how challenging it can be, etc.).

7.       In the ongoing patent war between Nokia and Google (News - Alert), who do you think has more ground to stand on in terms of the similarities in their mobile device offerings? I don’t see this as the most interesting patent war going on in our space right now. The biggest, and most interesting, is between Samsung and Apple. It’s interesting for a variety of reasons, including the disparity in outcomes in different jurisdictions and the size of the recent aware for Apple. Before this, the biggest and most interesting patent war was between Oracle (News - Alert) and Google. It was less interesting because it was fought completely in the US, but also more interesting in that involved both copyright and patent infringement for the use of public APIs. Copyrights are becoming more significant as a method for protecting critical IP.

 Want to learn more about patents in the telecom industry? Then be sure to attend Synopsis Under IP/Patents Telecom Sourcing Conference (SUITS), collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.   Stay in touch with everything happening at SUITS. Follow us on Twitter.