Google phone plans to be announced Monday

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Apple is doomed, and so is Eric Schmidt

I must say (yes, I MUST!) that I am getting tired of that freakin' picture in articles for the mythical google phone. If it actually is going to look that butt-ugly, there isn't a chance it will sell to anyone but the "It's google, they're god, I'm getting one!" crowd (if there are anyone like that still). Oh, and the Linux geeks who spend all their time wanting to write some cool phone app.

It seems like there are a lot of companies these days whose sole money making tactic is to sue larger companies for aleged patent infringement. Remember when Creative sued Apple and got $100,000,000? They coincidentally posted a $100,000,000 profit that same quarter.

Well, duh. If you won a $100 million dollar lawsuit, you would also have to claim it as profit as well. What did you expect them to do, sneak it out to the cayman islands?

And as opposed to your attempt at an argument, you might want to note that Creative is in 'real' business. They produce and sell actual products. They aren't one of those patent-holding companies that's very popular these days.

However, an easy fix for the patent system would be to limit the ability of someone to sue over patent infringement, say two years from when the infringing product has reached common knowledge. This would prevent situations where someone with a patent from the late 90s waits 5 years after the iPod hits the market, then, once its a huge moneymaker, sue them for outrageous amounts of money (basically let someone use your patent to become successful so you can grab as much as possible).

This would also allow for situations where, for example, a product like the Zune, which isn't well known, could be infringing, but no one knows it now. When it becomes a bigger seller in a couple of years (you know, they sell 20 a month!), then someone finally hears about a feature on it violates a patent, they still have recourse. Or if its not discovered for 7 years that, under the hood, the iPhone uses some hardware device that falls under someone's patent, but no one knew for a long time because of the way it was implemented.

But I guess that's just a dream....

I think I'll patent the air and then sue everyone on earth for breathing it.

Can't. Prior art (I have documentation to prove I've been working on this for 30 years, at least!)

Man, I just wish those people over at electrnista could actually fix their freakin' message boards so that posting to a topic actually posts to the topic you were writing on, rather then another one.

I mean, they fixed it over at MacNN!

I hate to tell you Creative's sole money making scheme is not sue larger companies over a patent. Creative isn't some company that just sits around patenting stuff just to sue people. First, Creative actually made a decent MP3 player long before Apple came around. It still does. Of course, it didn't have the market resources Apple had, so it really would have been hard for Creative to do what Apple did.

Second, Apple liked Creative's MP3 player so much that Jobs tried to form a partnership with Creative to sell an Apple branded Creative player. Creative turned Apple down. Third, Apple tried to patent the exact silly thing same thing Creative won a patent over. Creative just got there first. I doubt if Apple won the patent first and sued Creative, you would have any problem with that.

The Creative lawsuit was one of the few valid lawsuits over patents I have seen in a long time.

You write, "It seems like there are a lot of companies these days whose sole money making tactic is to sue larger companies for aleged patent infringement. Remember when Creative sued Apple and got $100,000,000? They coincidentally posted a $100,000,000 profit that same quarter."

Google phone UI will be as boring as the search site itself. If we are lucky enough, the only icon interface on the phone will be Google logo decorated with Christmas stuffs.