The patent apocalypse draws near. The armies are lining up on either side, each digging into predictable positions. The pro-Apple camp, as always, is much more mobilized and consistent, their generals barking the talking points(*1), while the Google side is a rag tag collection of disparate views and positions, with no community leader or rallying points.

Google has started an assault by posting some hypocritical and self-serving missives. I would expect absolutely nothing less in such a situation. When you're in a position of weaknesses you attack the things that make you weak. It is predictable and consistent with every corporation since the dawn of time.

However I will repeat the statement that this patent situation is going to explode, with the fury of a million explosive shards of glass, in a lot of people's faces. Trying to keep Android down(*2) is going to become an expensive venture for many. After the $4.5 billion Nortel patent buy, next up is Interdigital. Another $10 billion or so to invent nothing, but merely to have legal weapons to reduce consumer choice and increase prices (bizarrely there are people who are not at the receiving end of the financial rewards yet who cheer such a thing on)

Look at the 1000+ patents that IBM trollishly sold to Google for a thus far undisclosed price. IBM would certainly have maintained a license over all of them, if not the right to revert ownership in the case they need it for defensive purposes, but it's notable that more than a few cover database technologies.

IBM's #1 competitor in the very lucrative database world is Oracle. Oracle is attacking Google. Oracle and IBM stay off of each other's backs in patent court because they both hold countless patents that the other infringes. It's for this reason that they have a detente with Microsoft as well.

Oracle's database product is financially much more important to Oracle -- foundational of the entire organization -- than Android is to Google (as so many of the Apple fanbase constantly tell us: Android contributes little to Google beyond ensuring an avenue of contact with consumers remains open). Google now has the potential to seriously stir the pot.

An injunction against Oracle selling the foundation of their organization? That would be devastating to Oracle. As Google starts to assert their new pile, I expect the Oracle claims against Android to resolve into some nervous handshake and forced smiles.

Oracle has a lot more to lose than Google does. Oracle is in a position of serious patent weakness relative to Google's service-based offerings.

And then there is Apple. The company is built upon the iPad and the iPhone, both based on all of the same foundations. A gigantic $360 billion dollar corporation based upon the BSD-derived iOS.

Here's a thought exercise: Put a bounty out - $1 billion dollars for any credible patent that iOS infringe. There are doubtless tens of thousands of such examples (anyone who thinks that infringement is usually about stealing ideas does not understand software patents or the software process). Do such a process openly, giving Apple a chance to offer even more. That war chest can only hold out for so long. It is only a matter of time before Microsoft offers up any of their countless patents that iOS infringes: Their shareholders would demand it.

You only need one to stick. Apple's entire business would be under assault.

"But that would be anti-competitive!" you say. Yes, of course. That's exactly the point. Patents by their definition are anti-competition on the premise that they're pro-innovation. In current practice they are anti-innovation.

On Generals Barking the Talking Points

*1 - One of the primary weaknesses of many social news sites is the influence that special interest groups hold: A small group "voting" in concert is always louder than a larger group distributing their votes (see the last Canadian election for an example of that). On Hacker News -- a once great but now decrepit wasteland gathering point -- virtually every post by John Gruber, no matter how unnuanced, uninsightful, and predictable, makes it to the front page. It only needs to speak to that small minority who will predictably and in a concerted fashion vote it up. Any competitor (HN is long past gone. We live in a upside-down world where specialized subreddits on Reddit are insightful and interesting, while HN is populated with superficial talking points, movie references, and pun threads) would be a better site for individuals if they allowed a logged in user to flag stories for noninclusion in any personal vote counts. That if they see yet another empty Gruber post on the front page they could flag it and anyone who voted it up would be removed from any future counts and rankings as presented to them, either on comments or posts. I wouldn't want or expect influence to go beyond that (or it would be gamed), but the site would be a better site if that subsection of noisemakers could be silenced for me. I love to hear counterpoints and argue differing opinions, but the partisan zeal of some has reached the level where it never contributes anything meaningful to the conversation.

On Microsoft and Android

*2 - I have never understood Microsoft's antagonism towards Android, or their seeming complicity in the rise of Apple: Is this just some sort of wound they stew over, angry at how outclassed they were online? Windows Mobile licenses have never represented more than a drop in the bucket for Microsoft (the product has never come close to returning income), and their loss to the "free" (only not actually free) Android OS is financially irrelevant.

If Android didn't exist, iOS would completely dominate the mobile sphere right now. That homogeny would guarantee that Windows Mobile (WP7) wouldn't have a chance in hell. Worse, it would put Apple in a very powerful position of controlling the mobile space, and with that influencing and changing the ecosystem around it (which is exactly the reason why Google created and puts such overwhelming emphasis on Android. If every TV in the world were made by one maker, and that maker controlled the content as well, you would see the networks create their own sets for the same reason).

Microsoft has the ability to monetize Android in ways they can't on any other platform. From office hooks to Windows administration to deep integration to corporate Exchange packs, they can embrace and expand the system to compliment their existing business, strengthening it. Instead they provide enough ammunition to strengthen Apple, which really is destroying the future of Microsoft's core business. Enjoy those record quarterlies, because they're the result of inertia that isn't going to hold for much longer, while Apple moves to a position of being able to dictate and drive infrastructure.