Patent Law

On the Make

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Apple is trend setting again: following the model of Qualcomm, and more recently, AMD, into design house and patent provocateur, leaving the nasty risk of manufacturing to cost-conscious Asians. Apple has been hiring semiconductor engineers for many moons, building a cadre for designing next-generation chips. No fabrication intended. The only hard-shell cover for innovation is patent protection.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has recently hired away some top AMD engineering personnel, and has loads of listings on Internet job boards for chippers, who among other things, would be "testing the functional correctness of Apple developed silicon."

A year ago, Apple bought fledgling P.A. Semi, which Steve Jobs explained as a way to acquire expertise for increasing sophistication for iPods and iPhones. Earlier this month, Apple had its table at a job fair for soon-to-be erstwhile employees of Spansion, a bankrupt memory chip company.

Chip fabrication is a high-stakes, huge capital game. AMD recently spun off its fabrication capability, to run leaner and meaner against Intel, who complained mightily that AMD couldn't transfer its patent cross-license pact with Intel to the new company.

The eye on the ball for every product company is a sharp focus on intellectual property. America long ago lost its manufacturing edge in the world, except for those particularly nimble companies, top-drawer performers in manufacturing IP. The creativity that spawns patents is America's best hope for economic vitality. If only the high courts and Congress come to that realization....

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on April 30, 2009 (boomark / email).