The income stream is tiny or nonexistent. Microsoft recently challenged Moto's demands and ended up paying a royalty for every XBox. The royalty is so small that Google will end up having lost money on the litigation. And reasonable reading of the patents involved show that the royalty was grossly inflated. One of the patents was literally a patent on a number.
The purpose of patents in the smartphone wars is to force your competitors to deliver second rate phones or collect billions in damages. That's what Microsoft and Apple are doing to Android manufacturers. If Google can't retaliate, the patents are worthless in this context.
FRAND patents will never block Microsoft and Apple from using common, obvious functionality on their phones. Therefore they're worthless.
Microsoft have ignored standards and instead patented obvious necessary functionality and user interface elements and mathematical operations. Since prior art and obviousness are a dead letter at the Patent Office and the courts, these are the patents that are useful and valuable.
Essential technology patents based on research and development are worthless. Bounce-to-refresh, search boxes that actually search, long filenames, and other trivial or long known elements that can be forced past exhausted patent examiners are worth everything.
I'd say you hit the nail right on the head, but I find myself imagining this statement more like a compressed air nail gun shooting the nail so far into the wood that it splits; resulting in the entire house falling down.
The purpose of patents in the smartphone wars is to force your competitors to deliver second rate phones or collect billions in damages. That's what Microsoft and Apple are doing to Android manufacturers. If Google can't retaliate, the patents are worthless in this context.
FRAND patents will never block Microsoft and Apple from using common, obvious functionality on their phones. Therefore they're worthless.
Microsoft have ignored standards and instead patented obvious necessary functionality and user interface elements and mathematical operations. Since prior art and obviousness are a dead letter at the Patent Office and the courts, these are the patents that are useful and valuable.
Essential technology patents based on research and development are worthless. Bounce-to-refresh, search boxes that actually search, long filenames, and other trivial or long known elements that can be forced past exhausted patent examiners are worth everything.