Software patents distracting from innovation, Google says

Search and mobile giant Google says software patents are distracting the industry from innovation, and that patent battles could actually hurt consumers.

The comments come as a number of the manufacturers including Apple, Google, HTC and Samsung are rolled up in patent disputes that have lasted for months, and in some cases are costing millions of dollars.

“The tech industry has a significant problem,” Google general counsel Kent Walker told Bloomberg. “Software patents are kind of gumming up the works of innovation.”

“Each side can blow the other up on some level – everybody can block the other’s products from coming to market,” Walker said. “You create this mutually assured destruction scenario, but it’s very expensive to get all those munitions. Buying patents so you can hit the other guy, it’s not good form.”

Executive chairman Eric Schmidt recently attacked competitors suing it and HTC for patent disputes, namely Apple, saying that “they cannot respond through innovations”.