My first ever phone was a Nortel phone and the feature that made it stand out from the crowd at the time was the fact that it had voice-activated dialling and it was the only one at the time to have such a thing so I snapped it up!
The fact that no one I knew had a mobile phone was neither here or there! But if they did get one then I could call them by simply pressing one butting and saying their name (along with keeping my fingers crossed it would work) I could make a phone call to them!
Patent wars are becoming more common place these days and are highly sort after pieces of intellectual property. In my opinion the constant legal action taken by one company to another who then in return dig up a patent that the the other company has infringed, or worse still buys a patent from another company that the original company has infringed just so they can counter-sue them is not only daft but is stifling innovation.
So it is very refreshing to see that Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson, EMC and Sony have joined together in the form of a consortium which paid $4.5bn for around 6,000 patents and patent applications.
The fact that a consortium now owns these patents rather than an individual company can only be a good thing for the industry as a whole as (hopefully) there will be less legal bickering and more innovative and fantastic products for the general public to enjoy!
