Unit 3 Micro: Patent Wars- A Touchy Subject for Apple

This excellent news piece from Ben Cohen at Channel 4 looks at the increasingly aggressive patent war being fought by the manufacturers of the world’s leading mobile phone and tablet devices - the most profitable products in the digital economy. “Where once the giants (Google and Apple) competed on features, they now compete on patents.”

The news feature looks in particular at the intellectual property surrounding the slide-screen technology used by millions to unlock a device. Apple claims the IP to this but a video tracked back to twenty years ago suggests that developers were already thinking of something remarkably similar long before the iPhone came into existence. Can the makers of Android defend legal claims from Apple that their IP has been infringed? And who will end up paying for the enormous legal fees and possible extra licencing costs?

This is a great example to use when thinking about intellectual property, barriers to entry in markets and lock-in effects

Unit 2 Macro: Positive and Negative Multiplier Effects [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: The Importance of Productivity [20 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision Notes on Supply-side Policies [10 May 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Model answer for revision data question [9 May 2012]
Tullow Oil and African Development [25 Apr 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: The Euro Zone Crisis (Revision) [22 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: The Third Industrial Revolution [20 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Quiz on Business Costs and Profits [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Evaluation Question on Supermarkets [11 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Entry Barriers [10 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Monopoly Price and Output [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Monopoly and Economic Welfare [6 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Price Elasticity of Supply [5 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Revision on Producer Subsidies [2 Apr 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Revision on Scale Economies, Technology and Prices [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Nottingham introduces workplace parking tax [1 Apr 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Revision on Capital Investment [30 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: EU Imposes Further Price Cap on Mobile Phone Companies [29 Mar 2012]
Unit 4 Macro: Evaluating 3 Years of Quantitative Easing [27 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Breaking Down the Cost of Gas [4 Mar 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Inside the iPhone and Intellectual Property [18 Feb 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Public Goods [11 Feb 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Can the UK Computer Games Industry Grow [24 Jan 2012]
Unit 2 Macro: Factors Driving Business Investment [10 Jan 2012]
2012 - Carnage on the High Street [28 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Sub Normal Profits - BP Leaves the Solar Industry [21 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Brand Loyalty in Mobile Phones [27 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Patent Wars might Stifle Innovation [23 Nov 2011]
Unit 2 Macro: Should the EU introduce a Tobin Tax? [14 Nov 2011]
AS Macro: The State of British Business [13 Nov 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: UK Executive Pay - All in it Together? [29 Oct 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Exercise on Market Supply [26 Sep 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: You Sue, I Sue - Patent Wars Explode! [25 Sep 2011]
Another Economics prop - for remembering MC=MR! [15 Sep 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Cotton Prices and the Retail Price of Clothing [13 Jul 2011]
Unit 1 Micro: Economics of Volatile Corn Prices [12 Jul 2011]
Unit 4 Macro: Dangers of High Inflation [11 Jul 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Oligopsony - Dairy Losses Drive Farmers from the Fields [10 Jul 2011]
Where there’s muck there’s brass [6 Jul 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Demand Pull Inflation [24 May 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Cost Push Inflation [24 May 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Recession [23 May 2011]
AS Macro Key Term: Spare Capacity [23 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Competition Policy [20 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Oligopoly and Collusion [20 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Oligopoly [20 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Price Discrimination [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Entry Barriers in Markets [19 May 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Monopsony Power in Markets [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: The Importance of Profit [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: High and Low Marginal Cost Products [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Consequences of Price Discrimination [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Examples of Price Discrimination [19 May 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: Perfect Competition [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Competition and Efficiency [19 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Outsourcing [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Business Growth [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Innovation and Economic Policies [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Innovation Efficiency and Welfare [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Moving Away from Profit Max [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Minimum Efficient Scale [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Economies of Scope [18 May 2011]
A2 Micro: Innovation in Markets [4 May 2011]
AS and A2 Macro Revision: Keynesian Economics [28 Apr 2011]
A2 Micro: EU Aviation - State Aid and State Ownership [28 Apr 2011]
Wiki Revision: A to Z on Monopoly [23 Apr 2011]
A2 Micro: Changes in Costs and Profits [23 Apr 2011]
Rise in investment could kick start recovery [18 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Competition and Monopoly [17 Apr 2011]
Key AS Micro Terms: Costs and Profits [16 Apr 2011]
Smartphones and Creative Destruction [16 Apr 2011]
AS Micro Revision: Banana Prices [1 Apr 2011]
Innovation: Google’s Driverless Car [31 Mar 2011]
AS Macro Revision: Investment Spending [12 Mar 2011]
Tenner Tycoon - enterprise competition [7 Mar 2011]
World’s Most Innovative Companies [17 Feb 2011]
Economics Q&A: What factors help to explain rising food prices? [14 Feb 2011]
Shared Value and the Limitations of CSR [12 Feb 2011]
Shorting the market - the vultures target HMV [23 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: Can economics provide answers to the crisis of collapsing stocks in global fishing? [19 Jan 2011]
Tesco - Time to start a price war! [19 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: How might rising food prices affect food retailers and manufacturers in the UK? [16 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of a period of rising world food prices [4 Jan 2011]
Legal Cooperation between Businesses [30 Dec 2010]
Heinz Means Strikes [29 Dec 2010]
HMV on the brink? [9 Dec 2010]
Smarter Googling - Using the Toolbar [1 Dec 2010]
Google investigation [30 Nov 2010]
Google Public Data – Using in Economics Assignments [28 Nov 2010]
Growth and Strategy at Domino’s Pizza [27 Nov 2010]
Energy Oligopoly - Price Investigation is Launched [26 Nov 2010]
Using Google Docs - A2 Applied Micro on Collusion [21 Nov 2010]
The Rise and Rise of Internet Monopolists [14 Nov 2010]
Experimenting with Google Docs - the Rise of a Digital Conglomerate [8 Nov 2010]
The Market for Potash [30 Oct 2010]
A2 Micro: Monopoly Price and Output [28 Oct 2010]
Asia Rising - Thai Car Exports Speeds Up Growth [27 Oct 2010]
The Business Objectives of Mark Zuckerberg [25 Oct 2010]
Cows with IP addresses and social networks as modes of production [22 Oct 2010]
Departing from pure profit maximisation [14 Oct 2010]

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