9/26/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…
The global smart phone industry is still reeling from the implications of the ruling in favor of Apple in a high stakes legal battle with rival Samsung in the mobile technology space.
To be clear, Apple has every right to make use of the remedies available to them under international patent law. As the law is written, there can be no mistake that the pioneering iPhone and iOS operating system has been shamelessly mimicked in a desperate attempt to replicate its success and help satiate the insatiable human need for easy to use technology at an affordable price on a platform friendly to developers.
Yes, the villains at Samsung are being punished for listening to the market and copying and improving upon Apple’s design, making it faster, bigger, more affordable, and accessible to developers.
For this their punishment should be all the more severe.
So should the punishment for every organic farmer who dares to “copy” a seed which has been “patented” by Monsanto, or anyone who puts their hands to work to cultivate or, dare we say, improve upon something that has been made before them.
The point is that patent law, while serving the important function of protecting innovations as they come to market, is counterproductive on a societal level when they are enforced to keep copy cat products, which meet a need that the original product does not. In the example of the iPhone, offering a similar product at a more accessible price with an easier to use interface.
In fact, we see that in nearly every example of a company or individual invoking patent protections to protect its products, the law ends up causing a greater loss to society as they are forced to choose between what is now seen as an inferior or prohibitively expensive product or go without until the patent holder sees fit, from the crystal cage of their legal monopoly, to grant the populace an upgrade or a price break.
Apple, in this sense, has admitted defeat in the mobile realm, as the iPhone 5 proves once again that, after establishing the baseline for mobile technology through sheer genius, they are forced to lean on patent laws to maintain what should have been a clear competitive advantage.
The sales figures speak for themselves: Samsung shipped twice as many smartphones as Apple sold last quarter.
In the case against Samsung, we see that the authorities are more interested in product pride than allowing free actors in the market to supply a consumer need that the iPhone does not, par for the course in a system where Crony Capitalism daily stifles what may be life-changing innovations.
Thank goodness the human genome wasn’t patented! Where would we apply for the right to reproduce?
Full disclosure: We own devices with both android and iOS operating systems. For those who have never tried a droid, let’s just say that it makes operating in the iOS and the Apple ecosystem feel like being shackled with a pair of handcuffs. For those who have never tried the iOS, let’s just say it makes the droid feel clunky and unstable. Were it possible to mesh the iOS with the freedom of the android ecosystem, mobile nirvana would be achieved. Thanks to patent law enforcement, it never will be.
Stay tuned to your devices and Trust Jesus.
Stay Fresh!
Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com
Key Indicators for September 26, 2012
Copper Price per Lb: $3.70
Oil Price per Barrel: $90.25
Corn Price per Bushel: $7.43
10 Yr US Treasury Bond: 1.63%
FED Target Rate: 0.16% ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce: $1,743 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY
MINT Perceived Target Rate*: 0.25%
Unemployment Rate: 8.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI): 0.6%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 13,455
M1 Monetary Base: $2,279,800,000,000
M2 Monetary Base: $10,150,900,000,000