Patents. They’re pretty hard to avoid today, especially with mobile devices so prevalent – we’ve seen how important patents can be to a certain Fruit company recently. However, not everybody thinks that patents are an overall good thing and the biggest of those is Google themselves. It’s no secret that Google aren’t too pleased the state of play when it comes to how patents are being handled in the industry. Business Insider had a chance to sit down with David Lawee – VP of Corporate Development over at the Search Giant and he had a few choice things to say about patents.
Lawee expresses that he hopes the industry is “over the hump” when it comes to how patents are perceived and used in the industry and that the “thermonuclear” war that the late Steve Jobs craved doesn’t come to fruition. The VP goes on to say that Google never bought into patents in the way other companies have done and importantly that Google didn’t think “you could patent rounded corners”. It’s certainly something a lot of the media and I’m sure those in the industry have been thinking about recently, thanks to the Apple v Samsung case. Some of the patents that Apple have been awarded and are still being awarded are becoming awfully vague and broad.
You can check out the short clip of Lawee talking to Business Insider below, it’s not long and it’s well worth a watch: