The age of driverless cars may still be years in the future, but to those playing a long game, that just means that work now will pay off even more later. Google is getting into the business of tracking and managing driverless cars, and while the technology actually steering and perceiving the cars’ surroundings will be undergoing lots of changes, some fundamentals of their interactions with the world can actually be explored today.

For example, Google has been granted a patent for a “landing strip”: a parking spot with special markings that help the car park itself, and then allow it to determine exactly where it is without relying on GPS or landmarks.

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Another batch of Microsoft patent applications have trickled into public view, and these ones may be even cooler than the last bunch. They describe “flinging gestures,” interaction with 3D virtual objects, and even throw it back a bit to describe a new email view format.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

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Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman and former CEO, took the stage at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco today to talk about a host of topics, including the success of Google Apps, his feelings about Steve Jobs, Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola, with the conversation with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff even ranging into Schmidt’s thoughts on the current landscape facing the U.S. patent market.

The executive chairman began by addressing the purchase of Nortel Networks’ roster of patents by a group of buyers that included some of Google’s rivals, including Microsoft and Apple. Fellow TechCruncher MG Siegler covered the back-and-forth between Google and Microsoft that unfolded in regard to the supposition that the group that bought the Nortel patents was effectively attempting to cut the legs out from underneath Android.

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We spent quite a few posts in the last months covering a patent dispute between LG and Sony over four Blu-ray-related functions used in the PS3. The lawsuits affected sales of the console in the US and Europe in spring this year, and they came right after Sony brought a patent infringement claim (regarding cell phones) against LG to the U.S. International Trade Commission in late 2010.

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Watch me ruin your Sunday afternoon with one word. Ready? Here we go.

Patents.

This week on NBC’s Press:Here we talked about this topic most of our readers equate with a long, slow, painful root canal. Or worse. Laura Sydell of NPR was also on the show, and if you haven’t listened to her episode on This American Life called “When Patents Attack,” go do it now. We’ll wait.

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A week and a half ago, a report said that while the U.S. Department of Justice was looking into the bidding over the Nortel wirelesspatents, they were unlikely to object to Google winning the rights to them. But a new opponent to Google’s bid has arisen. And it’s a familiar foe: Microsoft.

Specifically, Microsoft is objecting to Google being able to purchase the over 6,000 patents without recognizing Microsoft’s existing licensing agreements on the patents, Reuters reports.  As we noted a week and a half ago, these licensing agreements were precisely why Microsoft was the one obvious bidder not competing for the patents — they didn’t think they had to. But the current terms for the winner of the auction doesn’t back up that argument. As of right now, the company that wins the bidding would be able to terminate existing agreements.

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The next generations of telecom technologies are called “LTE” or “4G”. China’s Huawei believes that by 2015, it will hold 15–20% of the worldwide patents in these technologies, and that these will it at least 1.5% of the sales price of every device—every cell phone, laptop, and tablet—that uses them.  Huawei is on track to achieve its goals: in 2007, it held just 152 patents; by the end of 2009, it had applied for 42,543 patents, of which 11,339 had been granted in China, 215 in the United States, and 1282 in Europe. Huawei’s rival, ZTE, claims to hold 7% of the world’s LTE patents and plans to increase this to 10% by 2012.

Emboldened by these successes, the Chinese government has initiated a nationwide program to make China the world leader in patents in every important industry.  The New York Times reported that the government is offering cash bonuses, better housing, and tax breaks to individuals and companies filing the most patent applications. According to the Times, China’s goal is to increase the number of its yearly “invention” patent filings from this year’s 300,000 to one million by 2015. And it wants another one million “utility-model patents”, which typically cover items like engineering features in a product. In comparison, there are 500,000 invention patents granted every year in the U.S. The requirements for “utility-model patents” are so mundane that they are not even recognized in the U.S. as a legitimate criterion for the existence of intellectual property.

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Just as geo mobile services are taking off, the U.S. Patent Office has awarded an extremely broad patent on “Location-based services” to Where. Patent No. 7,848,765 covers 31 claims ranging from sending an alert to offering a coupon when somebody crosses a geofence with a mobile device. Where CEO Walter Doyle calls it the “mother of all geofencing patents.”

A geofence is a predefined boundary on a map. For instance, it could be a two-block radius around a business. When somebody crosses into that area, they could be offered a geo-targeted ad or coupon. The patent also defines a geofence as possibly being “associated with a moving location that is associated with a portable electronic device.” In this case, the geofence is placed around individual users and moves with them. The patent seems to describe practically every mobile app with any kind of geo-trigger, from simple “location-based alerts” to “verifying transactions and tailoring information to the behavior of a user.”

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During my tech days, I co-authored four software patents. Each cost my startup about $15,000—which seemed like a fortune in those days. I didn’t really expect these to give me any advantage; after all if my competitors had half a brain, they would simply learn all they could from my patent filing and do things better. But I needed to raise financing, and VCs wouldn’t give me the time of day unless I could tell a convincing story about how we, alone, owned the intellectual property for our secret sauce. We got the financing, and the plaques of the patents looked great in our reception area, so the expense was worth it. But there was definitely no competitive advantage.

Patents make a lot of sense in many industries; they are needed to protect the designs of industrial equipment, pharmaceutical formulations, biotechnology products and methods, biomedical devices, consumer products (toothpaste, shampoo, contact lenses, etc.), advanced materials & composites, and of course, widgets (lighting fixtures & elements, batteries, toys, tools, etc.). But in software these are just nuclear weapons in an arms race. They don’t foster innovation, they inhibit it. That’s because things change rapidly in this industry. Speed and technological obsolescence are the only protections that matter. Fledgling startups have to worry more about some big player or patent troll pulling out a big gun and bankrupting them with a frivolous lawsuit than they do about someone stealing their ideas.

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China may overtake Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy this year. On its heels is India, and countries such as Brazil and Russia are not far behind. What does this mean for entrepreneurs? That, increasingly, the big opportunities lie outside the U.S. Most people aren’t aware of another advantage in emerging markets: you can freely leverage the wealth of proven intellectual property that has already been created in developed economies. Most countries outside the U.S. and Europe lie in a Patent Free Zone—where companies have not filed patents because they believe there is no market for their goods. So this intellectual property is available to anyone in those nations that can find a use for it.

Take the iPhone as an example: it has over 1000 patents; yet Apple does not apply for patent protection in countries like Peru, Ghana, or Ecuador, or, for that matter, in most of the developing world. So entrepreneurs could use these patent filings to gain information to make an iPhone-like device that solves the unique problems of these countries. Apple has so far received 3287 U.S.-issued patents and has 1767 applications pending: a total of 5054. Yet it has filed for only about 300 patents in China and has been issued 19. In India, it filed only 38 patent applications and has received four patents. In Mexico it has filed for 109 and received 59 patents (for all of its patents). So even India, China, and Mexico are wide-open fields.

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There was a time when Linux was notorious for having what was called “fugly” fonts. Things improved a bit over the years, but thanks to expiring patents things are about to get even better. mor…

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Amazon and other holders of business method patents can breathe easy for now. (One of the most famous business method patents is Amazon’s One-Click shopping cart patent).

In a ruling today, the Supreme Court basically punted on whether or not business method patents, in general, should be upheld. Instead, it ruled narrowly on the business method patent in question in the case, Bilski v. Kappos . That patent was thrown out. In that sense, it affirmed an earlier U.S. Federal Appeals Court ruling.

But the Court also warned people not to read to much into its decision.

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There will always be people who can’t help but engender dissent, and there will always be those who betray their allies. This sad reality is on display in the Open Source world this week as another of the community’s foremost commercial supporters is merrily thrown under the bus. more>>

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In my recent post on how stealth mode is a bad idea, I advised entrepreneurs to come out of their shells.  To build marketable products, you need feedback from customers, potential investors/partners and business advisers. And the veil of secrecy which comes with being in stealth mode blocks this feedback. But there is a flip-side that I want to make entrepreneurs more aware of: It is a tough world out there and some big and small competitors will deliberately or accidentally steal your ideas. A few of these players are predators much like the beasts of Pandora. So there needs to be a balance. You need to air your ideas, but use every available mechanism to protect yourself. When you do come under attack, run as fast as you can or fight like hell.

I’m going to explain all this through three examples. But first, I’ll cover the basics about patents.

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From the Groklaw Page:
IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state.
The first ever patent infringement litigation involving Linux. Here’s the [...]

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