Does this really happen?

[Dinner]

I ask because I read it on a forum which tends to have loonies play fast and loose with facts and where conspiracy theories tend to rule the day. One of the solar power fanatics is claiming that oil companies buy solar companies just to put them out of business. That strikes me as pure fantasy however it is not the point of this thread. What is the topic is the claim that companies often buy the rights to competing technologies only to put the patient on the shelf in order to make sure that technology isn't used. It was claimed that this was a common practice.

It strikes me as plausable that it might occur occationally but it seems like most companies aren't going to buy patients they don't want to use since the money could be more profitably used else where. I've repeatedly asked the fellow for sites but he hasn't responded. I suppose that give me my anwser but I do know that patents remain in force even if the owner doesn't use them. So conspiracy theory by loony leftest or does this sometimes happen?

[notyoueither]

I should hope that corporations would not be buying patients, and that if they did, they would be giving them the care needed for a speedy recovery, not simply putting them on the shelf next to the urn with Aunt Edna's ashes and the neglected house plant.

[Dinner]

BAH!

[:) Smiley]

May have happened a long time ago, but nowadays, if the technology exists, some Chinese or Taiwanese company will put it on the market, patents or no patents.

[snoopy369]

Microsoft certainly has done so a number of times; although they tend to 'incorporate' the competitor's product, often they already had constructed their own product and simply wanted to eliminate the competition.

It's called a 'horizontal monopoly' or 'horizontal oligopoly'. I'm not sure that it would happen in this case, given the broad spectrum of oil companies, and the ... obviousness? of the practice (why would an oil company buy a solar power company? the FTC would think), but it certainly has happened in the past. Rockefeller, and iirc Hearst used similar tactics (although the best would of course use the companies purchased to their advantage, regardless of the intent being to simply eliminate competitors).

I believe Comcast has done so as well (bought competing cable companies which initially cost comcast, but allowed them to raise cable rates (by eliminating competition).

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Oerdin
BAH!

You forgot the HUMBUG!

Get in the spirit of the season, will ya?

[Chemical Ollie]

I know a lot of patents that have ended up in the drawer after a company aquision, or have been only half-heartedly marketed compared to the in-house tech. Not invented here...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

OK not really patents but the whole companies I can straight away think of two.

Creative bought Aureal which had superior tech and killed it, and now has pretty much a monopoly for 3D accelerated sound...

Symantec bought PC Tools long time ago only to kill it off, and they just recently bought Sygate, and are killing of firewall products, including IMO the best "personal firewall" on the market.

Whatever... it is not illegal, and thus it might be worth it for the buyer, as the big company is not capable, or it is not politically (internal company politics) feaseble to promote the other better product/patent they have acquired so they let it die unfair death and a competitor is crushed. Smaller the competitor easier this is to do.

But I highly doubt that it can work all the time, ie to stifle a whole new industry with those methods - such as the "green" energy production.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

and here is an example of unrelated companies fighting back against a product they consider a threat.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/10/05/japan.wmachine/

the whole point is "if the product is soo bad" no need to worry it will self-destruct on the markey, no need for "industry sponsored" studies (aka marketing material) to proove the contrary.

We have a duty to provide consumers with objective information," said Takeshi Watanabe, of the Japan Soap and Detergent Association.

Duty for $$$ information

[Sikander]

Motion picture producers sometimes do this with scripts, either to keep anyone else from making them or in the hope that their value will rise. It really pisses off the screen writers when they sell their script, only to have it consigned to the vault.

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by Sikander
Motion picture producers sometimes do this with scripts, either to keep anyone else from making them or in the hope that their value will rise. It really pisses off the screen writers when they sell their script, only to have it consigned to the vault.

Rather vault than Uwe Boll...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

while this is OT, in principle just another side to the patent laws abuse...

http://www.engin.brown.edu/courses/en100/IP/Patents_R_Us.html

There are, however, plenty of lawyers. Mr. Stout, who has practiced patent law for 33 years, is a founder of NTP, whose only assets are a series of wireless e-mail patents granted to Thomas J. Campana Jr., the other founder, and whose only business is extracting licensing fees from companies.

Started 13 years ago, NTP has used the staff at Mr. Stout's law firm to exploit those patents. In March, their persistence paid off. Research In Motion, the Canadian maker of the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices, agreed to pay NTP $450 million to settle a long-running and sometimes bitter patent dispute between the companies.

.
.
.
But as NTP picks new targets for its licenses, Mr. Stout is quick to reject suggestions that the company's patents will not survive patent office review or that the patent holding business is a less-than-desirable line of work.

"Those who criticize, they think that unless you make products, you aren't entitled to having rights," he said. "That's just not so."

of course this is not so... this is just the "fruits" of stifling the market through patent laws...

but to the original point here is much more than a few examples in the IT so to speak of buying the competition out...

Oracle acquiring arguably leaner and better Peoplesoft, comes to my mind too...

However Oil industry buying out "green energy startups" never heard of that to date hard to believe that they would have the resources to look out for them and undoubtebly some would slip below the radar and become big if the "green energy" was indeed competitive vs traditional energy production