Intellectual property (IP) protection can be a vital part of a company’s journey from young upstart to billion-dollar behemoth, safeguarding all its technologists’ hard work while adding to the company’s value for investors or would-be acquirers.
But as we’ve seen countless times through the years, IP can also be weaponized.
Patent wars have been a mainstay of the modern technology era, with some of the world’s biggest companies embroiled in high-profile tête-à-têtes, from Apple vs. Samsung, Qualcomm and Nokia, to Google vs. Sonos, Twitter vs. IBM and many more. While some of this patent palaver might well stem from genuine IP infringements, there are many examples of patents being misused purely for financial gain.