Pitiful Patent System Has to Go

At the risk of stating the obvious, Ill say this right up front: The patent system in both Europe and the United States is the biggest threat to innovation in the world today. Rather than competing with each S62044L other on price and features, the biggest tech companies want to fight it out in court where some Luddite judgerather than the marketcan decide who wins and loses. By claiming that another company has violated some vague patent, one vendor can use the gateway replacement laptop battery legal system to either block rival products from the market or demand hefty kickbacks (a.k.a. licensing fees) from their makers.
This long-simmering problem reached a boiling point yesterday when a German court ordered Samsung to pull the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from all European shelves immediately, based on Apples claim that the Dell Latitude E4200 Battery Korean electronics giant was violating its design patents. If you take a look at the Dell Y085C battery design patent in question, it looks like it could apply to just about any tablet on the market today and many that existed in pasteven before the iPad came out in 2010.