Nowadays everybody is crazy about buying a new cellphone that too the latest model, with the most latest technology, be in camera, keyboard, screen, design, size and shape, operating system, and the loaded softwares. Why not! We have a lots of choice Apple, Samsung, Google, Sony, HTC…I too bought the latest model few months back with lots of enthu and excitement…but found that it became old in just few months when a higher version of the same was ready to launch in the market – the so called version 2, 3, 4 and etc.
Have you ever wondered that how many patents might be there in a single mobile phone or cellphone – numerous! And the life of much of these numerous patents is very less, you can say hardly few months. Now please don’t get confused here with the life of 20 years patent duration with the life of patent I am talking about. Legally these patents have a life of 20 years from the date of filing, but their working life or the commercial life is very less.
As lots of research is going in the fields of software and the biggies are hurrying up in making their patent strategies against their competitors. As a result, they are launching their products at a faster rate in the market, and we get an updated, higher or better version of the same in just few months. One of the reason could be the costly affairs of law suits or patent fights going amongst them- apple suing Samsung – Samsung suing apple and etc.
Once a higher version of a cellphone comes into the market, it is more valued over the older version and people buy the latest- obviously nobody will like to but an old item! Thus you can think of on how a commercial life of a patent hampers the overall sales, revenue generation, market value, limelight and reputation of a company. Still the biggies are nowhere behind in playing their game in a pool where huge cost and risk is involved. After all a patent is all about creating a monopoly in the market…!