Only about 3 percent: Paul F. Morgan, “Guest Post: Microsoft v. i4i—Is the Sky Really Falling?,” PatentlyO.com, 1/9/2011.
“Today was an important day”: Mark Gurman, “Tim Cook tells Apple employees that today’s victory ‘is about values,’” 9to5Mac.com, 8/24/2012.
Few understood this dynamic: Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 171–75.
Nothing illustrates Jobs’s obsession: Charles Duhigg and Steve Lohr, “The Patent, Used as a Sword,” New York Times, 10/7/2012; I supplemented this and cross-checked it with my own reporting.
Jobs was clever: Steve Jobs’s iPhone keynote address, 1/9/2007, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4OEsI0Sc_s.
The number of patent applications: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office annual reports, available at www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/index.jsp.
A patent for 1-Click: See Patent US5960411, held by Amazon.com, 9/28/1999; Stephen Hutcheon, “Kiwi Actor v. Amazon.com,” Sydney Morning Herald, 5/23/2006.
Alexander Graham Bell: The Telecommunications History Group, “The Telephone Patent Follies,” Telecommunications Virtual Museum, available at www.telcomhistory.org/vm/sciencePatentFollies.shtml.
The Wright brothers: Rose Eveleth, “Five Epic Patent Wars That Don’t Involve Apple,” Smithsonian, 8/27/2012; “The Wright Story,” Wright-Brothers.org.
In the 1950s the inventor: Nick Taylor, Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 40; George Stein, “Inventor fights laser patent war,” Lakeland Ledger (Knight News Service), 11/22/1982; Jeff Hecht, “Winning the Laser Patent War,” Laser Focus World, 12/1994, 49–51; Kenneth Chang, “Gordon Gould, 85, Figure in Invention of the Laser Dies,” New York Times, 9/20/2005.
One of the most famous: Adam Mossoff interview and emails, November and December 2012; Susan Decker, “Apple Phone Patent War Like Sewing Machine Minus Violence,” Bloomberg News, 10/8/2012; Mary Bellis, “The Textile Revolution: Sewing Machine Patent Battles & Improvements,” About.com; David Zax, “What Smartphone Makers Can Learn from the Sewing Machine Patent War” (Digits blog), Wall Street Journal, 10/28/2010; Adam Mossoff, “The Sewing Machine War: Howe v. Singer,” Volokh.com, 5/1/2009; Alex I. Askaroff, “Elias Howe, Master Engineer,” Sewalot.com; Adam Mossoff, “The Rise and Fall of the First American Patent Thicket: The Sewing Machine War of the 1850s,” Arizona Law Review 53 (2011): 165–211; Richard Cavendish, “The Singer Sewing Machine Is Patented,” HistoryToday.com, 2001; Adam Mossoff, “How Many Patents Make a ‘Patent War’?,” IntellectualVentures.com, 11/15/2012.
What is different with software patents: LeRoy L. Kondo, “Untangling the Tangled Web: Federal Court Reform Through Specialization for Internet Law and Other High Technology Cases,” UCLA Journal of Law and Technology, 2002.
But by 1981, with the PC gaining: Most of this historical case is from BitLaw, which lays out a fantastic timeline and explains how everything connects, at www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html; also, Erin Biba’s November 2012 interview with an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) lawyer.
But in 1987 Quattro: Lotus Development Corporation v. Borland International, Inc., U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, 10/6/1994, https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/49/49.F3d.807.93-2214.html.
Two years before Apple: Presentation at Solutions to the Software Patent Problem, a conference at Santa Clara University, 11/16/2012; Jason Mick, “Analysis: Neonode Patented Swipe-to-Unlock 3 Years Before Apple,” DailyTech.com, 2/20/2012; Liam Tung, “Apple Secures Patent on iPhone’s Slide-to-Unlock Feature,” ZDNet.com, 2/6/2013.
Mark Lemley, director: Presentation at Solutions to the Software Patent Problem; Lemley email, November 12, 2012.
9. Remember Convergence? It’s Happening
Within a year: Apple, Google, and Microsoft financial statements for 2010 and 2011.
Revenues from these businesses: National Cable and Telecommunications Association data; Television Bureau of Advertising data; and Jack W. Plunkett, Plunkett’s Entertainment & Media Industry Almanac 2012 (Houston, TX: Plunkett Research, 2012).
If you counted desktop and mobile operating systems: “Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users Reached 1.6 Billion Units in 2010,” Gartner press release, 2/9/2011; “Gartner Says Worldwide PC, Tablet and Mobile Phone Combined Shipments to Reach 2.4 Billion Units in 2013,” Gartner press release, 4/4/2013; Louis Columbus, “2013 Roundup of Smartphone and Tablet Forecasts & Market Estimates,” Forbes, 1/17/2013.
an orblike device called the Nexus Q: Fred Vogelstein, “It’s Not an Entertainment Gadget, It’s Google’s Bid to Control the Future,” Wired, 6/27/2012; Florence Ion, “Google Finally Lists Nexus Q as Not for Sale on Google Play,” ArsTechnica.com, 1/17/2013.
In 2013, it also offered: David Pogue, “What Is the Point of Google’s Chromebook Pixel?” (Pogue’s Posts blog), New York Times, 2/28/2013.
More than 1 million e-books: Rüdiger Wischenbart et al., The Global eBook Market 2011 (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2011).
Television studios such as: Eriq Gardner, “Viacom Sues Cablevision over iPad Streaming,” Hollywood Reporter, 6/23/2011.
Atavist set out to prove otherwise: David Carr, “Long-Form Journalism Finds a Home,” New York Times, 3/27/2011; David Carr, “Maturing as Publisher and Platform,” New York Times, 5/20/2012; David Carr, “Media Chiefs Form Venture to E-publish,” New York Times, 9/18/2012.
Pilots stopped carrying bulky bags: “FAA Approves iPad for Pilots’ Flight Planning,” iPadNewsDaily, 2/14/2011; Nick Bilton, “United Pilots Get iPad Flight Manuals” (Bits blog), New York Times, 8/23/2011; Christina Bonnington, “Can the iPad Rescue a Struggling American Education System?,” Wired, 3/6/2013; Katie Hafner, “Redefining Medicine with Apps and iPads,” New York Times, 10/8/2012.
The iPad had similar appeal on Hollywood sets: Brian Stelter, “Pitching Movies or Filming Shows, Hollywood Is Hooked on iPads,” New York Times, 10/24/2010.
Corporations loved the iPad: Nick Wingfield, “Once Wary, Apple Warms Up to Business Market,” New York Times, 11/15/2011.
It turned professional baseball players: “Bowman Says at Bat Application Sales May Triple on iPad,” Bloomberg, 3/23/2012.
By 2012, 16 percent of Americans: Online Publishers Association, “A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User: Wave II,” study conducted in partnership with Frank N. Magid Associates, June 2012.
The list of tycoons: Michael Kanellos, “Gates taking a seat in your den,” CNET News, 1/5/2005; Matt Rosoff, “Other Than Facebook, Microsoft’s Investments Haven’t Worked Out So Well,” Business Insider, 5/8/2012.
Earlier in the decade, TCI cofounder John Malone: Edmund L. Andrews, “Time Warner’s ‘Time Machine’ for Future Video,” New York Times, 12/12/1994; Ken Auletta, “The Cowboy,” New Yorker, 2/7/1994; Mark Robichaux, Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2002), e-book location 1796–2053.
When Gates was eyeing content: Rosoff, “Other Than Facebook.”
Executives such as Edgar Bronfman: Evelyn Nussenbaum, “Technology and Show Business Kiss and Make Up,” New York Times, 4/26/2004.
The industry maintained that: Eric Pfanner, “Music Industry Sales Rise and Digital Revenue Gets the Credit,” New York Times, 2/26/2013.
They controlled the most popular smartphone: “Gartner Says Worldwide PC Shipments in the Fourth Quarter 2011 Declined 1.4 Percent,” Gartner press release, 1/11/2012; “Smartphones Overtake Client PCs in 2011,” Canalys press release, 4/4/2013.
By the end of 2011, even after Apple: Daniel Eran Dilger, “Apple Has Now Paid $4 Billion to App Store Developers,” AppleInsider.com, 1/24/2012.
While Rubin has insisted that: Nilay Patel, “Google Building ‘Firewall’ Between Android and Motorola After Acquisition,” The Verge, 2/27/2012.
As Samsung’s Galaxy phones and tablets: Michael Lev Ram, “Samsung’s Road to Global Domination,” Fortune, 1/22/2013.
He said the best way to think: Mike Isaac, “Google’s Sundar Pichai Is Cool with Samsung’s Android Dominance,” Sundar Pichai interviewed by Walt Mossberg (video), AllThingsD.com, 5/30/2013, available at www.allthingsd.com/20130530/googles-sundar-pichai-is-cool-with-samsungs-android-dominance-video.
10. Changing the World One Screen at a Time
For those on the wrong end: The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, “The State of the News Media 2013,” annual report on American journalism, 3/18/2013, available at www.stateofthemedia.org.
But the mobile revolution: Nadja Brandt, “Silicon Beach Draws Startups,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 10/16/2012; Leslie Gersing, “Tech Start-Ups Choosing New York City Over Silicon Valley,” CNBC, 2/22/2012.
Netflix just spent two years: Julianne Pepitone, “Netflix’s $100 Million Bet on Must See TV,” CNNMoney.com, 2/1/2013.
Most think it is only a matter of time: Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 554.
“It used to be the only things”: Ari Emanuel interviewed by Conor Dignam at Abu Dhabi Media Summit, 10/10/2012, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjMST1m3DVc.
Lady Gaga’s next album: Lisa O’Carroll, “Troy Carter Interview: Lady Gaga’s Manager on the Future of Social Media,” Guardian, 11/4/2012.
Emanuel says that from his and his clients’ perspectives: Emanuel interviewed by Dignam.
The blurring of technology and media: John Paczkowski, “Sony’s Michael Lynton on How the Net and Social Media Are Changing the Movie Business,” AllThingsD.com, 2/12/2013; Peter Kafka, “Hollywood Goes Digital—but Not Too Digital: Sony Boss Michael Lynton’s Candid Dive into Media Interview,” Michael Lynton interviewed by Peter Kafka (video), AllThingsD.com, 2/26/2013, available at www.allthingsd.com/20130226/hollywood-goes-digital-but-not-too-digital-sony-boss-michael-lyntons-candid-dive-into-media-interview.
All this has been enabled or accelerated: The TV and smartphone numbers are based on an estimate. Based on the most recent data from Display Search for worldwide TV sales, I assumed that the average life of a TV is twenty years and that 200 million are sold a year. I assumed that the average life of a smartphone is two years. Gartner says 2 billion have been sold in the past two years.
All this is straining: Richard Sandomir, “ESPN Extends Deal with N.F.L. for $15 Billion,” New York Times, 9/8/2011; Matthew Futterman, Sam Schechner, and Suzanne Vranica, “NFL: The League That Runs TV,” Wall Street Journal, 12/15/2011.
Netflix didn’t originate House of Cards: Brian Stelter, “A Drama’s Streaming Premier,” New York Times, 1/18/2013; “YouTube Now Serving Videos to 1 Billion People,” Associated Press, 3/21/2013
YouTube boss Salar Kamangar: Peter Kafka, “YouTube Boss Salar Kamangar Takes On TV: The Full Dive into Media Interview,” Salar Kamangar interviewed by Peter Kafka (video), AllThingsD.com, 2/27/2013, available at www.allthingsd.com/20120227/youtube-boss-salar-kamangar-takes-on-tv-the-full-dive-into-media-interview.
It’s going to be an enormous battle: David Carr, “Spreading Disruption, Shaking Up Cable TV,” New York Times, 3/17/2013; Jeff John Roberts, “The Genie Is Out of the Bottle: Aereo’s Court Victory and What It Means for the TV Business,” GigaOM, 4/1/2013; Peter Kafka, “Wall Street to the TV Guys: Please Bail on Broadcast for Cable!,” AllThingsD.com, 4/8/2013.
HBO is keenly aware: “HBO’s Eric Kessler at D: Dive into Media,” Eric Kessler interviewed by Kara Swisher (video), AllThingsD.com, 2/28/2013, available at www.allthingsd.com/video/hbos-eric-kessler-at-d-dive-into-media; Alistair Barr and Liana Baker, “HBO CEO Mulls Teaming with Broadband Partners for HBOGO,” Reuters, 3/21/2013; Peter Kafka, “HBO Explains Why It Isn’t Going a la Carte Anytime Soon,” AllThingsD.com, 3/22/2013.
In mid-May 2013: Larry Page’s Google I/O 2013 keynote address, 5/15/2013, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf2Ct8-nd9w; Q&A with Page at Google I/O 2013, 5/15/2013, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfK8h73bb-o.
Android’s share of the mobile phone and tablet markets: “Android Captures Record 80 Percent Share of Global Smartphone Shipments in Q2 2013,” Strategy Analytics press release, 8/1/2013; “Small Tablets Drive Big Share Gains for Android,” Canalys press release, 8/1/2013.
Apple was also taking heat: Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, “How the US Lost Out on iPhone Work,” New York Times, 1/21/2012; Duhigg and Bradsher, “In China, Human Costs Are Built into an iPad,” New York Times, 1/25/2012; Mark Gurman, “Tim Cook Responds to Claims of Factory Worker Mistreatment: ‘We Care About Every Worker in Our Supply Chain,’” 9to5mac.com, 1/26/2012; “Here’s Apple CEO Tim Cook’s Apology Letter in China” (Digits blog), Wall Street Journal, 4/1/2013.
But perhaps the most notable example: Jessica Lessin, “An Apple Exit over Maps,” Wall Street Journal, 10/29/2012; Liz Gannes, “Google Maps for iPhone Had 10 Million Downloads in 48 Hours,” AllThingsD.com, 12/17/2012.
Apple’s Tim Cook knows all the challenges: Ina Fried, “Apple’s Tim Cook: The Full D11 Interview,” Tim Cook interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher (video), AllThingsD.com, 5/29/2013, available at www.allthingsd.com/20130529/apples-tim-cook-the-full-d11-interview-video.
Jobs was a master: Peter Kafka, “Apple CEO Steve Jobs at D8: The Full, Uncut Interview,” Steve Jobs interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher (video), AllThingsD.com, 6/7/2010, available at www.allthingsd.com/20100607/steve-jobs-at-d8-the-full-uncut-interview.
Acknowledgments
Writing is usually a solitary act. Writing a book—at least one like this—is not a solitary act at all. There have been dozens of people involved in this three-year journey. And so I am pleased to have this space to thank them.
This book never would have happened without a slew of current and former editors, designers, and staff at Wired magazine. I wrote the stories that formed the foundation of this project there. I want to thank the magazine’s former editor in chief Chris Anderson; its former executive editors Bob Cohn and Thomas Goetz; its current editor in chief, Scott Dadich; its current executive editor, Jason Tanz; its current managing editor, Jake Young; and its features editor, Mark Robinson. Before Jason was executive editor he was my editor, meaning he shepherded all my stories into the magazine.
I want to thank the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto for giving me office space and for nourishing my spirit during the day. The Grotto, founded nineteen years ago by Po Bronson, Ethan Watters, Todd Oppenheimer, and others, is a miraculous collection of about five dozen fiction and nonfiction writers. They have come together to share a space and to create a community. Had I not landed there, I would have tried to write the book out of my house or from an office alone somewhere. I would not have succeeded.
Thank you also to Erin Biba, who researched and wrote a third of the chapter on patents. I met her when she was a correspondent at Wired. She has gone on to become a columnist at Popular Science. For the first twenty-five years of my career I fact-checked my own stories exclusively. But during my time at Wired I discovered that its fact-checking department, run by Joanna Pearlstein, hires some of the smartest and most reliable young writers and reporters in journalism. Thank you to one of those researchers, Bryan Lufkin, who took on the job of helping me fact-check the manuscript and for having the wisdom to bring in his colleagues Katie M. Palmer, Elise Craig, and Jason Kehe when he needed help.
I wouldn’t have gotten this project off the ground were it not for the advice about the book-writing process and generous agent recommendations of my friends Joe Nocera and Steven Levy. My friend Jim Impoco read the manuscript and gave me comments. I worked for Jim fifteen years ago. He is one of the best editors walking. Yukari Kane, who is working on her own book about Apple out of the Grotto, provided daily therapy and jelly beans. Our books are different enough so that we were able to support each other without letting competition get in the way.
Thanks also go to my father, John, who provided endless encouragement. I might not have become a journalist were it not for his harpin
g on the importance of the written word at dinner. Also thank you to his wife, Barbara, and my brother, Andrew, and his wife, Monica, for listening to my gripes for three years. I wish my mom were still alive to thank, but many of us in that position feel that way. Thank you to my friend Eric Snoey for all those a.m. coffees, and for making sure I didn’t forget about myself.
It’s hard to imagine a better agent than Liz Darhansoff, who agreed to take me on when the proposal for this book was barely formed. She was tough with me when she needed to be, she was my therapist when she needed to be, and she had my back at all times.
It’s also hard to imagine a better publisher/editor than Sarah Crichton, who has her own imprint at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Before I started this project I had heard dozens of publisher/editor horror stories. They are much like the stories one hears about contractors—about promises made and not fulfilled. That hasn’t been my experience at all. Everything Sarah said she would do she did—and more. I feel privileged to have met and worked with her. My thanks also to her assistant, Dan Piepenbring; to production editor Mareike Grover; and to the rest of the editing and marketing staff at FSG. We closed this book quickly, and a lot of people I haven’t yet met had to work overtime to get this book ready in time.
Lastly, I want to thank my wife of twenty-three years, Evelyn Nussenbaum. I, like I’m sure many writers, took on this project thinking that somehow I would be the one who got to the end without leaning too hard on his partner. I was wrong. I leaned on Evelyn really hard. She not only handled it. She was a source of endless encouragement. She managed without me on two family vacations and on most Sundays for a year. She managed without me our son’s bouts with epilepsy and family issues of her own outside our home. And she gracefully managed the mood-swing rollercoaster that every first-time author—and maybe every author, period—goes through. She was an amazing journalist herself for twenty years, so she understands the writing and reporting process. But that only marginally helps anyone deal with the exhaustion of running a family by yourself. She is an inspiration to me.
Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution Page 25