While most articles have been written focusing on specific winners and losers of this patent war between every mobile OS shop and the respective mobile hardware manufacturers, the real winners include each and every individual that gains some sort of clue about the future landscape of technology patents in the US and abroad from the decisions (and non-decisions) being made. With patents covering such basic software methods as “identifying a piece of information from a string of text and providing a context menu based on the identified information” it is of paramount importance that the bounds to these lawsuits be set firmly and...

The NY Times yesterday posted a tidbit about a little-talked about facet of antitrust law: the Clayton Antitrust Act does not permit a person to sit on the board of two rival companies when the result is a reduction in competition between them. Why is this interesting? Because it involves the FTC opening an investigation on two of the giants in tech, Apple and Google. The section is rarely enforced, but it could lead to Eric Schmidt leaving Apple’s board if push comes to shove. The law only kicks in in the case of “interlocking directorates” when revenue from competing products is more than 2 percent of either company’s...