Tech at Night: Regrouping after patent, Net Neutrality, and competition losses

Posted by Neil Stevens
Saturday, September 17th at 2:30AM EDT

We’ve lost some battles lately. That’s what happens when we let a radical Democrat become President. We let Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act pass, imposing on America a Euro-style patent system that rewards lawyering, not being the first to invent something. We let the FCC pass an illegal Net Neutrality power grab, and that will have to go to court soon.

We’re even seeing some nominally Republican-run states get on big government bandwagon against AT&T, sadly joining in the effort by the Obama administration and Sprint Nextel to hinder competition and pad Sprint’s bottom line. What are Ohio and Pennsylvania doing there? Come on.

But at least we’re on track to get meaningful 4G competition. Some question the firm’s ties with the Obama administration, but I welcome progress toward LightSquared launching its network. Unlike Obama and Holder, trying to prop up Sprint, I actually want competition and lower prices.


Remember Google and defenders claiming it only patents things defensively? Even as it seeks to acquire Motorola Mobility, a firm engaged in offensive patent suits against Apple? Well, Google just bought over a thousand patents from IBM. Hmm.

Wikileaks is all about principle, and will stand up for the little guy as long as you’re not African.

You have to love committed ideologues of radical, extremist agendas like the ‘media reform’ crowd. They see vast conspiracies behind the refusal of some to champion Net Neutrality. Maybe if they’d pick agendas that weren’t so out of the mainstream, so that they wouldn’t have to rely on well-funded astroturf, maybe people would actually speak out. But George Soros’s wallet doesn’t need spokespeople.

BGR reads this “smartphone shipments” chart and sees the decline of RIM. I look at it and see why Apple is going after Samsung’s infringement of iPhone and iPad so hard: Samsung’s catching up.