Tag Archives: manufacturing

Patent Trolls Not Content Hiding Under Bridges

Business, Economics, News, Politics, Technology, , , , , , ,

One of the things that constantly hinders creativity is the ability of lazy people to jump on an idea and try to leech off its creators until there’s nothing left of the innovation but a bunch of pissed off designers who figure it’s probably not worth it to continue. That’s going on right now in technology. A long time ago, US companies were innovative with some great ideas that pushed ideas into manufacturing. For years, the USA was known for quality products that you really couldn’t find anywhere else. And then a bunch of leeches started copying everything these companies were doing and distributing almost the same product but cheaper (and not as well made). This caused US companies to have to compromise on standards, and then the race downhill began. Now, if you go to buy some product in the US, it’s almost guaranteed to be somewhat crappy made, and the company that sells it to you will try to get you to pay for an extended warranty because they know you know that your product isn’t going to last long without it. Quality got traded for cheap and quick. We’ve never really recovered.

Well, now we have a new problem. And that’s the problem of patent trolls. Someone comes up with an idea, patents it, and then all innovation in that direction is forever hindered by some bottom-feeding company that doesn’t manufacture anything itself but sues companies for making products. A company named Lodsys is suing a whole bunch of companies that have done nothing other than make apps for smartphones. Claiming that they invented some obscure technology that they never produced, Lodsys has now gone out of its way to sue pretty much any company that dares to make an app for the Android and Apple app markets. Apple jumped in and decided to respond as a plaintiff on the side of the people being sued, but it hasn’t stopped this company from continuing to go after any company it thinks it can get to settle for some cash. As it doesn’t produce any products other than lawsuits (to anyone’s knowledge), they really don’t have anything to lose. Recently, they decided to sue the makers of Angry Birds, which means they see big dollar signs, and they’re not afraid to go after it.

The problem with this is that it sets up a chilling effect in the design marketplace. As someone who will be making Apple apps myself, I see this as a real problem because who in his right mind would want to create anything for a platform that is guaranteeing a lawsuit the second you actually start to make any money? If Apple and Android don’t get Lodsys to cease and desist, it’s going to seriously hinder the marketplace.

That’s what patent trolls do. They make it so that people don’t want to develop anything because what’s the purpose when some bottom-feeder is going to try to steal your money anyway? It’s a lot like the movie industry today. I have a friend of mine who makes independent films. He doesn’t make a lot of money from it because everyone in this industry is practically a bottom-feeder, from the people who do the color correction, the people who adjust the sound, the people who manufacture the commercial dvds, the agents who promise great things but really don’t do anything other than promise great things and the many “producers” who take money but don’t do anything other than promise great results before stating “Man, it’s a tough market. Perhaps if you ponied up another $16,000, I might be able to do something”, the people actually making products have less and less incentive to do so when all of the money happens to be in the peripheral service industry that doesn’t actually create anything.

Unfortunately, the solution to this situation isn’t ever going to happen because the ones who benefit from the problem is a band of lawyers who speak the same language as the people who need to be fixing this situation. Politicians and lawyers work hand in hand so that the people who create things, the designers, the movie-makers, the writers and the manufacturers, have no say so in the outcome but remain at the mercy of people who historically don’t understand the very nature of the word.

Caveat Emptor is why American is no longer the world leader it was

Economics, , , , ,

The other day, I bought a package of 16 chicken sandwiches from Costco. It was the really good kind with cheese. Anyway, I was all happy about it, thinking that 16 sandwiches should hold me for quite some time. So merrily, I began my odyssey of eating sandwiches for various meals, convinced that I would be a chicken-eating happy camper for some time to come. The other day, I put the last chicken sandwich in the microwave, thinking nothing of it, until I realized that it was the last one. It was then that I started to think back on the recent events of my life, and realizing that unlike other people, I didn’t think about the mad affair with the twin blondes from Sweden, the narrow escape from death I had fighting ninjas who were hell-bent on keeping me from their attempt to destroy our American way of life, nor did I reflect upon my invite to the White House where President Obama asked me to fix that small problem he was having in the Middle East. No, my reflection went straight back to that purchase of 16 chicken sandwiches and my realization that I had not in fact eaten 16 chicken sandwiches since buying that package. In fact, I could only remember eating 8. It was then that I realized I had probably been cheated, fooled and/or bamboozled by yet another American greedy corporation. I had been cheated of chicken.

You see, what I realized was that this chicken selling company had done was package 8 separate chicken meals and then count each packaged sandwich as two meals. When they put the content stuff on the side of the larger package, they decided that each package included two chicken sandwiches, even though the package appeared to be one, tasted like one, and fooled me into thinking it was one. Yet, for credit purposes, they were able to put “16” on the box, counting each of those sandwiches as twice as much food as it really was. No one would know better because when you had that many sandwiches, you wouldn’t know you were down to your last one until you had already gone through more than one man could possibly count at one time. Okay, I’m being a bit ridiculous, but the simple fact of the matter is: They told me I had more food than I actually had.

And I’m pissed.

You see, this happens a lot. The soda companies have been doing this for years, and it has been driving me nuts. I am currently drinking a single bottle of diet Pepsi right now. When I read the contents on the side of the bottle, the manufacturers are actually claiming that I am drinking 2.5 servings of soda right now. They are wrong. I am drinking 1.0 servings of soda right now because no logical person on the face of the freaking planet actually shares a bottle of soda with 1.5 other people. Nor do they poor only 1.0 servings and then put the other 1.5 servings back in the fridge. No, most people open up the one bottle and chug the whole thing down as one serving. This 0.5 crap is just that. Crap.

This also happens with potato chips. Buy a package of chips and that bag of chpis that you are planning to eat alone is actually 2 or 3 servings of chips that they give you the caloric data for one serving, so you think you aren’t eating as much. But everyone knows that one person sits down and pretty much munches down the whole bag.

Somewhere down the line, people who sell us stuff stopped being honest with us. Granted, they weren’t really always that honest with us to begin with, but even further down the line they got worse. The old line of caveat emptor “buyer beware” has always existed, but at some point the honesty should have gotten better, not worse. I remember a time when if you bought something, you were guaranteed to get satisfaction from the manufacturer for the life time of the product. Not any more. Now, when you buy something, Best Buy wants to change you an extra $60 to guarantee that the item will work past the first year. In other words, you can’t trust any company concerning any product because the only guarantee you get from the manufacturer is that it was so cheaply made that you either need to insure it past a year, or you’ll have to buy a new one in a year.

This is my belief why America has lost its way in the international marketplace of products. Years back, you would mention an American product and there was a certain satisfaction that you bought something of quality. Whenever you heard “Made in China” that was an indication that you went the cheap route. Now, any product you buy today is considered the cheap route because NOTHING is guaranteed to be good. If you buy a Japanese car, expect it to accelerate and kill you. If you buy an American car, well, just expect everyone to laugh at you because American car companies haven’t made good cars in decades. Oh, we say they do because we’re all patriotic and all that flag lapel wearing kind of crap, but in reality, when someone mentions an American car, we laugh at them because American cars are generally overpriced, gas guzzlers and overpriced. America no longer stands for quality and good prices. It really doesn’t stand for anything any more.

So, I’ll probably go back to Costco and buy 16 more chicken sandwiches, but at least I know I’m really buying 8. I just like to know when I’m being cheated so I can at least live a little better with myself.