Can't Innovate? Litigate! 3Com Goes Patent Lawsuit Ballistic

from the ghosts-of-companies-past dept

Remember back when 3Com was a big innovative company coming up with interesting new products? What happened since then? Well, as we've seen over and over again, once a company runs into trouble continuing to innovate, its last ditch effort to stay in business is to start suing everyone for patent infringement. Step up to the plate, 3Com. The company set up a subsidiary specifically for suing other companies for patent infringement and just sued Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, Sony, and Toshiba. Oh, and take a guess where this "subsidiary" set up shop? East Texas... of course. All the better to file patent lawsuits apparently...

17 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Is HP Finally Just Targeting Ink Counterfeiters, and Not Legit Refillers?

from the about-time dept

HP has stepped up its efforts to crack down on printer ink counterfeiters -- and with good reason. While the company plays up that it's helping consumers by getting shoddy products off the market, it's more about protecting its business. In the past, HP's put pressure on retailers not to carry cheaper alternatives to its expensive replacement ink cartridges, and it's tried to use patent suits to shut down cartridge refillers. But with sales down across the board, HP is moving to try and recoup some of the $1 billion analysts allege it loses to fake ink every year. BusinessWeek says "For years, HP could afford to ignore the problem," because of booming sales. But apparently, it couldn't afford to try and use patent lawsuits, pressure on retailers and other shady tactics to try and crowd lower-priced alternative products out of the market. It's perfectly fine for HP to go after counterfeiters selling inferior products under its name, trying to defraud consumers. But let's hope that's all it's now doing, and it's given up on trying to force legitimate alternative products out of the market.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

32 Comments | Leave a Comment..

HP Making It Easier For Anyone To Be A Paper Magazine Publisher

from the encouraging-more-printing dept

Two years ago, we noted (with some surprise) that at least some top execs at HP seemed to actually be focused on trying to move the company into the future rather than clinging to the past, as is so common with many companies. Of course, it's one thing to say that, and another to actually get there. One of the elements discussed was recognizing that the traditional reasons why people print stuff might be going away, and the company needed to look elsewhere for revenue -- including coming up with new reasons why people might print stuff on paper. So one of the projects that HP has been working on (and is trying to promote more now) is its MagCloud offering that makes it cheap and easy for just about anyone to become a paper magazine publisher. Basically, you set up whatever you want via PDF, upload it to MagCloud, and it costs $0.20/page, and you have a nice glossy magazine. They'll even handle shipping copies off to your "subscribers" (and you can charge whatever you want for it).

While it might be worth wondering who wants to start a print magazine as so many things are going online, I could certainly see some uses for this on the margin -- including adding ways for primarily internet-only publications to add a cheap paper option as well. The fact that it takes out some of the bigger costs (especially upfront costs) and logistics, it will be most interesting to see if people start coming up with entirely new and creative uses for such micro-press magazines. I'm not convinced (at all) that this will actually succeed -- but I do find it interesting to see a big company like HP try to adapt to a rapidly changing market that undercuts the need for some of its core products.

15 Comments | Leave a Comment..

HP And Walmart Get Rid Of Laptop Box; Buy The Computer And Get It In A Messenger Bag

from the about-time dept

Having bought my fair share of laptops over the years, I've noticed that the packaging has gotten smaller. I remember years ago buying a laptop and receiving a huge box with the actual laptop suspended in a styrofoam suspension system. More recently, I've seen laptops coming in much smaller boxes. However, Wal-Mart and HP have apparently decided to try ditching most of the packaging altogether, and letting you walk out with your new laptop in a messenger bag, rather than a box. Yes, there are still boxes from when the machines are shipped from HP to Wal-Mart, but the company can now fit 3 laptops to a box, significantly reducing packaging and making life easier on customers in the long run.

36 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Lexmark Trying To Help Users Print Less When They Print The Web

from the makes-sense dept

Last year, HP announced a special button that could be put on blogs to let users more easily print blog posts, without all the extraneous stuff on the website. At the time, we didn't see the value at all, but plenty of folks responded in the comments that it seemed like a good idea. It wasn't long before the folks at HP contacted us about trying the button out ourselves, so we put it on the page. It gets some use, though not an overwhelming amount. It appears that some people do actually print stuff out -- and they appreciate the simpler version.

Now, it appears that HP printer rival Lexmark is taking that idea much further by making it easier for users to eliminate a bunch of the junk on websites before printing them out -- so you only print out the stuff you really want. Unlike the HP initiative, this doesn't require the companies hosting the content to do anything, it takes care of it on the client side. Given the insane costs of ink, it's no surprise that printer companies have been a bit slow to adopt solutions that get people to use less ink -- but it's good to see them finally starting to recognize that it's probably for the best. Giving your customers reasons to like you, rather than hate you, tends to be a good long-term business strategy.

20 Comments | Leave a Comment..

More Companies Using Experimental Economists

from the a-step-forward dept

While it's true that it's difficult to find economists who agree with each other, that doesn't mean (as some would like you to believe) that economics is useless. The basic principles behind economics are pretty sound. The issues generally come up in how people interpret putting specific situations into economic models. That's because there are so many variables in real world economics, it's nearly impossible to model them all. So, the different opinions coming from different economists tend to be based on what sorts of variables they throw into models, and how they weight them. The truth is, however, that there's plenty of good things to be learned from the various models and experiments done by economists in various fields to try to narrow down those variables and perfect those models.

And, of course, those models can be quite practical. So it's great to see more and more companies (especially in the tech world) hiring experimental economists and putting them to work to start making more economically sound decision making, rather than seat-of-the-pants decisions on ways to adapt new business models, products and pricing. While there will still be plenty of mistakes, there will be a much better overall understanding of what works and why.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Tech Companies Team Up To Buy Up Patents To Keep Them Away From Others

from the this-won't-help dept

Google, Verizon, HP, Cisco and some others are apparently teaming up to put money towards buying patents to keep them out of the hands of patent hoarders who would turn around and sue them. This isn't a new concept, and has been tried before -- and it didn't help much. The problem is that many of the worst patent suits aren't from "known" patents, but someone claiming a patent on some minor feature that everyone thought was obvious. Also, this type of action only encourages more bad patent activities by adding another buyer to the market. Now, questionable patent holders will recognize that they can also just sell to this patent pool, rather than selling to some patent hoarding firm. This is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but will have little to no effect on slowing down or stopping bad patent lawsuits, and may actually encourage more of that activity.

20 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Smartphones Patented... Just About Everyone Sued 1 Minute After Patent Issued

from the wasting-no-time dept

This past Tuesday, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent on "a mobile entertainment and communication device." Reading the patent, you realize it describes the quite common smartphone. It's a patent for a mobile phone with removable storage, an internet connection, a camera and the ability to download audio or video files. The patent holding firm who has the rights to this patent wasted no time at all. At 12:01am Tuesday morning, it filed three separate lawsuits against just about everyone you can think of, including Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, AT&T, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, Samsung and a bunch of others. Amusingly, the company actually first filed the lawsuits on Monday, but realized it was jumping the gun and pulled them, only to refile just past the stroke of midnight.

As the link above explains, the patent itself is based on a bunch of continuation filings, which are commonly used by patent holders who want broad patents to cover the latest technologies well after they've already come about in the market. It would seem like the concept itself, merely combining a bunch of things that people were already talking about, should never have been granted based on the Supreme Court's recent KSR ruling that merely combining existing concepts doesn't deserve a patent. Also, as noted in the comments to the link above, it would appear that there's a fair amount of prior art. In fact, Apple even sent over some prior art concerning the patent just before it was originally supposed to be issued last summer -- but somehow patent holder's lawyers talked their way around it. In the meantime, it looks like we've got yet another case of an overly broad and obvious patent being used against a huge number of firms. I'm sure that's exactly what Thomas Jefferson expected when he created our patent system.

89 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Staples, HP Sued For Not Selling HP Compatible Ink

from the antitrust? dept

Back in February, we talked about how HP was pressuring retailers not to stock generic brand inkjet printer ink cartridge refills, though it appeared that Staples was the only company who agreed to the deal. This wasn't surprising -- as the margins on printer ink for companies like HP are astronomical, and the company has been doing everything it can possibly think of to stop anyone from selling competitive ink, including filing bogus patent lawsuits. It took some time, but someone is now trying to file a class action lawsuit against HP for the deal it made with Staples, who is also included. The lawsuit claims that the deal is an antitrust violation, but that seems like a huge stretch. While we agree that it's somewhat sleazy, it's hard to see how this is a serious antitrust violation. There are plenty of places, online and off, where you can buy offbrand ink cartridges (or have existing cartridges refilled). If Staples wants to cede all that business to others, that's its (bad) decision. However, no one is forcing people to shop at Staples, and customers should do a little research before realizing that there are much better options than what Staples is stocking on its shelves.

29 Comments | Leave a Comment..

For Now, Big PC Makers May Benefit From Lower Costs

from the fleeting-profits dept

Commoditization is always a threat to PC manufacturers like HP and Dell, although by most accounts HP has done a better job of differentiating its products than the competition. But there's also an upside to commodization for these companies: cheaper components. A new research note from a Wall Street analyst argues that both HP and Dell will realize meaningful benefits from cheaper components when they report their coming quarterly earnings. In addition to lower DRAM and LCD prices, the ongoing price war between Intel and AMD will prove particularly beneficial. Whether these companies are actually taking advantage of these savings or whether they've been forced to completely pass them on to consumers depends on the market dynamics. Between Dell and HP, they may have enough of a grip on the market to avoid an all-out price war themselves, but such a situation can only be temporary as they'll be forced to cut their own prices eventually.

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Taiwanese Contract Manufacturers Set Sights On Brand-Name Prize

from the store-brand-soda dept

Despite manufacturing plenty of the most recognizable electronics products in the world, and making plenty of money, the names of most Taiwanese contract manufacturers aren't familiar to consumers. For instance, Hon Hai Precision Industry generated revenues of more than $26 billion last year by making products for Apple, Dell, HP and other companies. But the Taiwanese firms are increasingly trying to leverage their experience and expertise by establishing their own consumer brands and using them to boost their product margins. Contract manufacturing is a low-margin, volume based business: for instance, one analyst says contract manufacturers of laptops have 3-5% margins; compare that to the 40% or more Apple enjoys on iPods. But growing the brands can be a tricky proposition, and not just because the companies are looking to enter new and unfamiliar consumer markets. The problem is that these companies are looking to become competitors to their biggest customers: for instance High Tech Computer, which makes mobile phones for a variety of companies, is building up its HTC consumer brand, and competing with clients like HP and Palm in the process. Some are trying to get around this by splitting off their consumer operations from their contract-manufacturing businesses, such as Acer did successfully several years ago. Still, that's not the only obstacle. Getting the consumer marketing right remains a big issue -- particularly when the new consumer brands are competing against companies for which marketing, not manufacturing, is a specialty.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..