After seeing the movie “The Social Network” this past weekend—which chronicles the events leading up to the creation of Facebook—I began thinking more and more about the concept of intellectual property. At what point in the idea process does something belong to you? In the movie, Zuckerberg (the creator of Facebook) is accused of stealing the idea of Facebook from his Harvard peers. While most critics agree that Zuckerberg indeed “stole” the idea, I find myself surprised at how strongly I disagree. In a world where individuals have ample resources available at their fingertips via the Internet, how does one idea ever truly belong to one person? While ideas are hard to compartmentalize, the emergence of patents aim to protect a company that relies on technology and innovation to maintain competitive advantage.
According to Apple, Motorola has stolen their idea of multi-touch technology. However, unlike the case of Facebook, Apple has patents to protect their competitive edge in the smartphone market. Apple is suing Motorola for violating 3 patents that deal specifically with multi-touch surfaces, claiming that their smartphone products like the Droid are a direct copy of the technology featured in Apple’s leading product, the iPhone.
Since I am an iPhone user, I don’t think Apple has anything to worry about. The iPhone is clearly superior to all Motorola products, even if they DO feature multi-touch technology. It will be interesting to see how the courts interpret the case, and the outcome will largely shape intellectual property cases in the future.
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