HP spent $1.2B to acquire Palm a little over a year ago. According to Google Patents, Palm is the assignee in 12,000 patents. If HP can sell off the Palm patents for the same $/patent as Google is paying in their Motorola acquisition, they would net $8.8B.
It's a sad day for innovation when patents are worth more than the product they back. Why wouldn't HP kill off webOS? How long would it have taken them to make $7B in profits off of webOS?
The patent portfolio of Palm is maybe not much worth. The WebOS was introduced 2009 and postdates the iPhone.
And Palm did in 2003 spun off their operating system (think of the Treo PDA/Smartphones), which was then bought by a japanese company (Access ltd). Microsoft did license last year a few dozen "Palm" patents from them. I guess any valuable patents date from that time frame but are not owned by Palm anymore.
They paid 1.2B to acquire those patents and Palm itself. It seems obvious that the market values those patents at somewhere < 1.2 billion.
Even if they've appreciated of late, their selling price last year is probably a lot more instructive as to their value than "$/patent" in the Motorola deal.
$1.2B for the acquisition, sure, but what about the money put into the development of the TouchPad, Pre 3, etc, in addition to the costs of distribution and marketing?
Regardless, it does seem like they could still make a hefty profit off of selling the patents (and if there's one thing we all need more of, it's patent talk...)
Which is exactly my point: they would be in an even better position had they not even developed those new devices and enhancements to the OS. At least we got a year's worth of innovation before they realized it made more sense to sell the patents rather than the product.
what i think lawyers and justice departments want patent war to go on as it will profit them, and this people are very powerful they know the laws inside out. Lawmakers or the congress will not pass any legislation to curb this problem as it profit many people its a money making pot. so the patent war will go on as usual and google or any other company will have to take concrete steps to shield themself.
I think we are quickly approaching a point of patent detente. Google needs to get a few more patents and indemnify Android OEMs and maybe lob a few lawsuits at Bing etc. and MS will quickly cross license. Same against Apple.
And one sign of a "mature market" is that barriers to entry rise. So for the big players the game of patent poker is the price they pay to keep the innovations down to a dull roar and to "manage the competitive environment", for actual innovators It just means that the slope is steeper, and if they are at all successful they will attract predators like Lodsys/IV.
And while a few more entrepreneurs getting ground into hamburger by lawyers isn't that big of a concern in the larger scheme of things; it does mean that innovation in the tech sector is tamed and that we lose out on great products that never get a chance to compete in the marketplace.
It's a sad day for innovation when patents are worth more than the product they back. Why wouldn't HP kill off webOS? How long would it have taken them to make $7B in profits off of webOS?