Welcome back to the war zone. There’s lots and lots of bigtime lawsuits going on in our mobile industry here and you’ve got to keep your eyeballs on all of them. Right? Not unless you care about the future! The future of super cute and radically awesome mobile phone designs, and I’m talking about physically here. Google has just added Modu to its greater patent portfolio collection, acquiring therefor every design for a cellphone they’ve created over its lifespan. But what is Modu, you ask? a tiny Israeli startup responsible for the Guinness book of World Records record of the world’s lightest phone.
That’s not all they do, of course, they’re also responsible for a concept whose family is known as “jackets.” These jackets can be placed on Modu handsets, each one of them having a different interface and set of functions. Will these weird things be added to the Android family? Maybe, probably not, who knows? The point is that Modu, even with their sweet set of ideas, was very recently about to run out of cash when Google stepped in and whipped out its wallet. SURE said Modu, we’ll take your money, go ahead and make this stuff over there in America!
Google of course will use these patents perhaps to build new lovely objects but more importantly to defend itself against current and future lawsuits against Android. If you’ll take a look through our collection of lawsuit posts, you’ll find that the largely evil* *my opinion, set of patent crows living it up on mobile device ideas written on paper are circling around our friends at Google for their Android booty. With Modu (and innumerable additional patent collections,) Google grows its defense against them.
What do you think? Is it a good thing that Google wont be able to be sued by patent hawks, or should they be torn to bits by inventors who claim they thought of ideas first and are therefor entitled to millions of bucks from the big G? Of course this is much too large of a generalization – do you have any general opinion?
[via Android and Me]
I’m not sure about using the patents for protection against litigation but the concept of having a small core android device with just a sim, storage and basic functionality then being able to slot that into other more powerful devices is very appealing.
If an inventor has invented a new product or technology, they should be rewarded for their hard work and ingenuity. Google also should be free to invest in technologies they feel have potential. I love seeing new backpacks that make people’s lives easier and that look good. Joe from Backpack and Gear
http://www.backpack-and-gear.com