Faculty in the News
In the News
Patents emerge as significant tech strategy
Publication date: Oct. 22, 2011
Source: The Seattle Times
Author: Janet I. Tu
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In an article about how technology companies, including giants like Microsoft and Google, use patent practices, the Seattle Times quoted Andrew Torrance, professor of law.
In many patent negotiations, bringing up the larger, vaguer threat of "we have thousands of patents, you infringe on some of them and we're willing to go the distance to sue you" is enough to start negotiations for a settlement, said Andrew Torrance, a visiting law professor at the University of Washington who specializes in intellectual property and patents.
About 1 in 1,000 such disputes reach a final court decision, with most having settled well before then, he said.
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Torrance, the law professor, draws a comparison to the early days of the PC when similar skirmishes over patents eventually settled down to "an uneasy peace" where rivals realized they had enough firepower to harm one another.
"I think we're in the early stages of a similar battle in mobile computing, which will eventually settle down like it did with PC computing," Torrance said. "But it will take a lot more cases."