Week 8 Post 2: Android's tethering feature

While some of us might not be familiar with the term "tethering", we sure are aware of how Internet can be shared using people's Android / Apple / HTC, etc. phones via portable computers. Then phones are literally turned into network routers. This feature, however, apparently is an infringement. As a matter of fact, Nokia just defeated HTC and Google with respect to this legal interpretation of patent no. 5,884,190.
As suggested by Foss Patent, " As a result, it appears very difficult for Google and HTC to deny infringement at the trial (which will start in two months' time), and if they cannot prove this patent invalid based on prior art (which would have to be older than June 1995), a U.S. import ban against HTC's Android devices is reasonably likely (unless, which is even more likely, HTC agrees to send royalty checks to Finland)."

This probably demonstrates a counter argument for those who claim that the current patent system only creates monopolies – one sole company in the industry that takes up all the market share, and in turns set up prices that are proportional to demand, instead of costs – and worse, customers suffer from the high price they pay. Is it what we observe today? True, we might have several industry leaders taking up the majority of the market share, but we are not at the absolute opposite of perfect competition?


Of course, we could again argue that the royalties are basically transferred to the customers because they are largely reflected in the retail price of digital device. Yup, there exists inefficiency – even Robinson Crusoe economy has inefficient solutions to problems, let alone our multinational complex modern society. Just that things might not be as bad as some think.