The Patents That Killed the VoIP Star
Ardent fans of the patent system are fond of legitimizing the system based on the mantra that ‘patents encourage innovation’. However, evidence continues to mount that patents are accomplishing exactly the opposite and are one of many reasons that innovative technologies fail to succeed.
The latest example, covers VoIP patents.
The problem, of course, is that tons of companies (some big, some small) all claim patents on various aspects of VoIP — creating the very definition of the “patent thicket.” That is, there are so many patents around the very concept of VoIP that no one company can actually afford to offer a VoIP service, since the cost to license all the patents is simply too prohibitive.
Read the entire dirt.
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