this american life – on patents, and those such as chris crawford’s that cover foundational aspects of our online existence that, in this particular instance, overlaps with 5303 other patents with similar claims, which happens to be not so unusual. It happens 30% of the time.

On the $4.5b Nortel patent portfolio sale to the Apple-led consortium…

That’s $4.5 billion on patents that these companies almost certainly don’t want for their technical secrets. That $4.5 billion won’t build anything new, won’t bring new products to the shelves, won’t open up new factories that can hire people who need jobs. That’s $4.5 billion dollars that adds to the price of every product these companies sell you. That’s $4.5 billion dollars buying arms for an ongoing patent war.