Exactly! Nortel is a classic Death by Accountants scenario. They had so much IP and so little leadership and total lack of vision in its last years. To think they were a VoIP pioneer only to just let it go to someone else. Hope someone puts the IP to good use.
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Apple Reportedly Bidding to Purchase Nortel Patent Assets
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Exactly! Nortel is a classic Death by Accountants scenario. They had so much IP and so little leadership and total lack of vision in its last years. To think they were a VoIP pioneer only to just let it go to someone else. Hope someone puts the IP to good use.
As a shareholder, skip the dividend. I like making money. Keep growing the businesses and the stock will reflect it.
Dividends are for stagnant stocks to keep shareholders around.
What sense does that make? If they're valid patents, then they are protected ideas and therefore have some inherent value. Why does that value go out the door if someone else buys it? If I invent some incredible technology that I patent and you want to buy that from me to use in your products, does it suddenly lose all value when ownership of it changes hands? What sense does that make?
Besides, Apple doesn't have a long history of suing others frivolously so I don't think that's a concern. They do have a history of firing back lawsuits at those who sue them, and they do seem to be something of a magnet lately for legal action from other companies. I suspect this is more of a defensive move on their part.
Sound more like a "death by management" scenario.... How do you figure it was the accountant's fault?
That's an interesting point. Nortel's VoIP patents are highly important to Cisco and Nokia who are heavily into VoIP. All Nokia Symbian handsets have had OS level SIP/VoIP built in for years. As an aside, Android 2.3's major feature is full SIP support too.
Apple so far have done absolutely nothing with standards based VoIP. iOS 4 was a massive letdown with Apple just providing an API that let VoIP apps run in the background - you still have to implement your VoIP protocol yourself. iChat on the Mac was sort of like SIP (and STUN) but not compatible. I thought Facetime was classic Apple NIH syndrome but I wonder if it's more to do with Apple not wanting to pay for someone else's technology and licence patents, just as they're trying to do with getting out of GSM tech.
You're right: it makes no sense. The idea that "if your company fails, the patents go down with it, but they remain stored so no one can re-patent the same thing" shows virtually no understanding of how the patent system works.
For one, how exactly would the patent be "stored"? How do you "store" an idea, and declare it off-limits? Talk about inhibiting advancement!
And for how long is it "stored" (until the patent holder does what: amasses a fortune to pull it out of storage)? And what's to happen to the licensing fees for that so-called "stored" patent? Who's supposed to protect the "stored" patent? Is this an 'honor system' thing? LOL!
Is that poster aware that the U.S. Patent Office doesn't determine the validity of a patent application (i.e. whether the patent is redundant of prior art, or rises to the level of "advancement of the art"), and doesn't manage or handle licensing fees? Does he understand that the determination of validity of a patent is often made via challenge in court, and not by the USPO?
The fact is that even the most 'air-tight' patent requires deep pockets and substantial time (often decades) to protect and defend, even if the inventor has seemingly "clear cut" evidence of someone violating their patent (usually to escape paying licensing fees). And that an inability or failure to defend a patent will invalidate it, allowing it to fall into public domain ahead of schedule?
Real-world reality is that unless a financially-challenged patent holder finds a deep-pocketed patent lawyer or venture capitalist who's willing to finance the case for him (in exchange for a % of settlement/licensing fees), it's pointless to even bother applying for a patent, in the first place.
In essence, all patents ARE "stored" and unproven as having validity, until they're actually challenged (and/or vindicated as valid) in court.
In that regard, Apple needs to show their willingness to protect their turf (where the best defense is carrying a big legal stick, ALA Apple's war chest to finance legal dep't).
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I think you are the one who should learn a bit more. Patent Office makes an investigation to see if the application is really new and valid etc. That is why it takes 2 years to get a patent. Otherwise it would be done in one day. It may not be as through a job as you wish it was, but it is an investigation nevertheless.
You can go to court to challenge USPO's determination, but that does not mean USPO does not make a determination. If it did not, then you would not be challenging their decision, as there would not be a decision to challenge. It is not a "fill out a form and you will be granted a patent" type of agency.
You are thinking of trademarks, not patents. Otherwise, how could these patent trolls go to court with really old patents that nobody has heard of to sue many big companies? Time to hit the books...
Assuming 0.06890922 cubic inches per dollar bill and with 25.62 billion cash on hand, that would give a volume of 1,021,675 cubic feet. This would be a square swimming pool, 320 feet on a side and 10 feet deep. Rather large, but doable. However, I'm not sure you could actually swim in it. Perhaps you could arrange and pile them up for seating to construct a modestly sized football stadium.
What, you never saw Ducktails? Clearly, money can be a medium in which one swims. Look at the glasses he is wearing, they even look like the ones that Steve Jobs wears.
I'm not sure taking a header into a pile of metal is a terribly good idea (outside of cartoonland). I'm not sure which is more dangerous, that or patent litigation without owning enough patents.
Donate it to a useful cause. They could save millions of animal lives with their money. With 50 BILLION bucks, they could also probably find a cure for AIDS -AND- cancer. They could build universities and schools for those who otherwise cannot afford or get any education.
The list of USEFUL and GOOD things that one could do with 50 billion dollars goes on eternally, and it's sad that all they think about are new patents that can be used as fuel in lawsuits or new toy products.
With that huge amount of money at your disposal should come responsibility BEYOND that of making your shareholders happy. It somehow disgusts me that a part of that money came from my wallet. Just like everybody else here, I could have done more useful things with it.
Yet you purchased a 27" iMac i5 (a very recent model) and an iPhone 3G. LMAO
Apple is a tech company that makes tech products at a profit. WTF are you talking about.
A lot of what they make goes in for R&D, retail expansion, supporting the infrastructure to manufacture the very thing you use to make nonsensical posts on MR.
Why not donate your Mac to charity? Yes, that shiny new iMac i5. Every time you sit down to use it to scream and moan against Apple - seemingly against all reason - and tell everyone how disgusted you are with the company (and that iMac i5 you JUST bought) you're adding another piece to your mental illness puzzle. So give up your Mac and do your part. That would certainly qualify as doing something truly useful, at least for the rest of us.
Arguing against Apple's success is like telling Michael Phelps how to swim. Duh.
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A lot? No.
Over the past five years, Apple averaged about 3% of their total sales income on R&D, and about 10% on salaries, manufacturing, advertising, rent, taxes, etc.
There's a reason why Apple has tens of billions in the bank... because they take their profits and stash them away, instead of using them as you said.
Trillion(s) have been spend on the wars against cancer and HIV, therefore I doubt 50 billion will somehow find cures for both. I don't think that having money somehow leads to any special type of duty to the greater good. Hell, if Steve Jobs wanted to dress in a purple suit, wear white face paint and set fire to a billion in cash, I would not care.
Apple is a corporation; their ONLY duty is to make a profit while operating under the confines of regularity constrains.
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I am wondering, how much do you contribute to charity in your community? Do you donate money or other things? Are you involved in social community service?
Why not start today? Or wait, it is easier to complain here in Mac Rumors about those [tinfoil] big, greedy organizations, who only want our money and total control over our lives [/tinfoil]
You sound incredible naive and yet, very bias.
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IMO, Nortel was too much interested in cost optimization (thus listening to the accountants) than being innovative. They got cheap in all parts of product development from design to engineering to manufacturing to quality assurance.
The last generation of devices were buggy as hell and they paid the "ultimate price for being cheap" by going into insolvency over bad products that could be great if they wanted to do something. Love to know the golden parachutes the board is going to get for dissolving this and moving on. Also, I'm sure a bunch of Chinese are trying to grab this IP too.
There is no money in cures for Cancer or AIDS. The money is in the treatment and those are run by Governments.
Cisco doesn't have the access to capital to compete against Apple. There in debt and Apple is deeply in the black.
What market reports do you read? Apparently made up ones.
Every company that grows markets, and has proper management, maintains debt and cash. Cisco has billions in free cash flow and is also fairly liquid with a really big accounts receivable. This means they can increase their debt to obtain IP which will be used to make money over the long run. If a company is only operating from profit then they don't plan on growing over the next several quarters or years. That would be bad a executive vision.
go to wsj.com and type in CSCO then look over their balance statements. You are obviously reading some Mickey Mouse publication.