MTV Movie Awards Unveiling Brand New Twitter Tracker

published: 2012-06-03 18:57:37

The 2012 MTV Movie Awards are just around the corner. With a ton of epic releases ranging from The Hunger Games to Captain America to Thor, the past twelve months have been chock full of suspense, action, and a whole lot of lip-locking. To celebrate, MTV plans to give out plenty of awards starting at 9 p.m. ET this evening; and the cable network has even put together a ?Twitter Tracker? and a Facebook ?Timeline Tracker? to keep fans of the event as up to date as possible.

A first look at theTwitter Tracker makes the new platform seem like an up-to-date way to stay abreast of the proceedings. The platform features a continually updating list of those actors and films currently getting votes for various awards. During the ceremony, it will also feature the hashtags that are a big deal at any given moment and will feature a way to share photos. According to MTV, the ?Timeline Tracker? sounds a bit less interesting, with the MTV Facebook Page continually updating things people are down with ?liking? at any given moment.

For some shameless self-promotion, both options are pretty interesting, especially for those without the capacity to watch the event live. Technological platforms are constantly changing, and it is extremely interesting to see how the TV networks will continue to cross-breed the Internet with cable programming. I never thought I would see a world that would embrace hashtags so rapidly, but the day has finally come.


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Paris police probe sighting of Canada porn actor

An international manhunt is underway for Luke Magnotta, a Canadian adult film actor who police say murdered and dismembered an acquaintance, posted video of the crime online, and mailed body parts to Canadian political offices. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports and former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt offers analysis.

By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

Updated at 8:19 a.m. ET: Police in Paris are investigating claims that fugitive Canadian porn actor accused of killing and dismembering a Chinese student has been staying in the French capital.

Luka Rocco Magnotta is suspected of murdering the man in Montreal, making a video of the attack and sending the victim's dismembered body parts in the mail - including posting a foot to the headquarters of the country's Conservative Party.


Magnotta is wanted by authorities in Canada for first-degree murder and other charges. Interpol has put Magnotta on the equivalent of its most-wanted list, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

Police believe Magnotta, 29, fled to France on May 26. Police identified the victim as Chinese university student Jun Lin, 33.

An official in the Paris prosecutor's office, speaking on condition of anonymity because of office policy, told the AP police were looking into alleged sightings in Paris but had no additional details.

French newspaper Le Parisien reported on Sunday that the manager of a bar in the 17th arrondissement of Paris saw Magnotta in his bar on Wednesday night and that Magnotta spent two nights at a nearby hotel.

Luka Rocco Magnotta is wanted by police in connection with a murder in Montreal.

It also reported that police believe Magnotta committed two thefts from shops in the neighborhood.?The Le Parisien report could not be confirmed by police on Sunday.

On Friday, police in France told NBC News that Magnotta could have taken a car and driven to another country.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

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Olympic torch starts 5-day Northern Ireland tour

Karen Marshall, the first torch bearer from Northern Ireland, carries the Olympic torch to start the relay from Titanic Museum, background center, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sunday, June 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Karen Marshall, the first torch bearer from Northern Ireland, carries the Olympic torch to start the relay from Titanic Museum, background center, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sunday, June 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Karen Marshall, the first torch bearer from Northern Ireland, poses with the Olympic torch at Titanic Museum, before the relay in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sunday, June 3, 2012. to Photo/Peter Morrison)

Karen Marshall, the first torch bearer from Northern Ireland, poses with the Olympic torch in front of Harland & Wolff shipyard during her relay in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sunday, June 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Karen Marshall, the first torch bearer from Northern Ireland, poses with the Olympic torch at Titanic Museum, before she starts the relay in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sunday, June 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Karen Marshall, the first torch bearer from Northern Ireland, carries the Olympic torch to start the relay at Titanic Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sunday, June 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) ? The Olympic torch began its five-day tour of Northern Ireland with plenty of excitement and no signs of trouble Sunday as the territory's Protestants and Catholics vowed to show the world how united the community has become after four decades of conflict.

Police warned of extra security to deter any of the region's small Irish Republican Army factions ? still trying to undermine a broadly successful peace process with guns and bombs ? from trying to disrupt the event.

But the Olympic torch proceeded from Belfast's Titanic Quarter to the prosperous belt of towns along the County Down coast with no unusual security evident. Just as during its first two weeks on British soil in England and Wales, the crowds were free to stand beside the passing torchbearer, who was flanked by four to six tracksuit-clad security staff jogging alongside.

Between stops, a Northern Ireland police motorcycle unit used to protecting VIPs sped ahead to block roads and ensure the torch convoy of more than a dozen vehicles carrying support staff and media stuck to its ambitious schedule to reach every corner of this province of 1.7 million by Thursday.

Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party that long supported IRA attacks but today helps govern Northern Ireland alongside its British Protestant majority, said all of Ireland was excited to see the symbol of the 2012 London Games arrive. The flame will cross the border Wednesday into the Republic of Ireland to tour Dublin, a special concession to demonstrate today's exceptionally strong British-Irish relations and cooperation between the two governments on the island of Ireland.

"The all-Ireland torch relay is a celebration of sport, culture and our local heroes. This really is our opportunity to shine and showcase our cities, beautiful scenery and most of all the people who live here," said Caral Ni Chuilin, the Sinn Fein sports minister for Northern Ireland.

Sunday's torch run started at dawn in the Belfast docklands where the city's most infamous export, the Titanic, was built a century ago. It headed east to Holywood, best known as the hometown of top-ranked golfer Rory McIlroy, then to the port of Bangor, the major town of a stretch of coastline known as the Gold Coast because of its reputation for comfort and affluence.

Along the sidewalks, sometimes the crowds of spectators grew to five deep in the hearts of town, but more often the torchbearer was able to wave to single groups of people cheering, whistling, hooting ? or occasionally still rubbing sleep out of their eyes, bathrobes on, coffee mugs in hand.

The torch spends the rest of Sunday visiting Stormont Parliamentary Building, the base for Northern Ireland's 5-year-old unity government, then showcasing some of the province's most spectacular scenery along the coast north past glacier-carved forest glens and the Giants Causeway, with its strange carpet of hexagonal rocks running down to the Atlantic waves.

As the torch passed through predominantly Protestant towns east of Belfast, the locals' loyalties were on display, with many waving British flags adorned with images of Queen Elizabeth II. Much of the torch's later route goes through predominantly Irish Catholic turf, including areas where IRA extremists still committed to the idea of overthrowing Northern Ireland by force live.

Underscoring the threat, a suspected IRA activist tossed a grenade at a police unit Saturday in Northern Ireland's second-largest city, Londonderry, where the Olympic cavalcade will spend parts of Monday and Tuesday. The police, who were searching a property at the time, weren't injured but their vehicle suffered heavy shrapnel damage.

In Belfast a police deputy commander, Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay, said the Northern Ireland public would see heavy deployments of officers both along the Olympic torch routes and at events associated with the queen's Diamond Jubilee, also being celebrated this weekend. He said IRA splinter groups "will take any opportunity to cause disruption."

He said people might find roads blocked, and other unexpected security delays. "We are taking these steps to keep communities and their officers safe. We would not do this if it was not absolutely necessary to protect life," Finlay said.

Several spectators said they doubted that any IRA splinter group would seriously disrupt the torch run. They said even if Irish republican extremists tried something, Northern Ireland's people were determined to keep partying anyway.

"We're not going to let that crowd of morons ruin our day. They represent zero-point-zero of the population. This is the real Northern Ireland," said Gareth Wilson, 35, standing with his wife and two sons by the roadside with cell phones in hand, each snapping pictures as the torch cavalcade passed.

___

Online:

Olympic torch relay May 19-July 27, http://l2012.cm/Juynr7

Associated Press

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AVMA Veterinary Career Center: Private Practice jobs, Waynesboro ...


Associate Veterinarian POSTED: Jun 02
Salary: 60,000.00 - 90,000.00 Location: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
Employer: Waynesboro Veterinary Clinic, Inc. Type & Experience Level: Part Time or Full Time - Less than one year
Function: Veterinarian Employment Type: Private Practice
Category: Private Practice Preferred Education: DVM or equivalent

About Waynesboro Veterinary Clinic, Inc.

Small animal AAHA veterinary practice established 33 yrs. ago. Moved into a new hospital in 2006. Great support staff, 19 employees, friendly, mentoring atmosphere. Beautiful and friendly community close to Washington, DC & Balt., MD. Owner attends 50+ hrs. continuing education/year. Our company motto for the past 33 years has been and will continue to be, "We treat your pets the way we treat our own!"

View all our jobs


Full or part-time veterinarian needed for a 3-year AAHA accredited small animal hospital in rural south central PA. Friendly, patient, mentoring atmosphere. Practice established 33 years ago, just moved into our new hospital in 2006, experiencing consistant growth. We have a terrific staff to support you in your practice. Owner attends 50+ hours of continuing education/yr., has a strong desire to mentor. Benefits include health insurance for individual, Simple IRA, professional dues and liability insurance, 10 vacation days/yr. Emergencies are covered by local emergency clinic.

NOTES:
Additional Salary Information: 23% of production will be paid, with a guarenteed base salary of $60,000.00

PA Veterinary licence, Must like people and be willing to work as a team member. Prefer to hire for full time, will consider part time position.



Waynesboro Veterinary Clinic, Inc.

Waynesboro PA

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Online Dating Coach: Moving on ? The Benicia Herald

By John Gavin

I MOVED TO THIS TOWN A LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR AGO.

At that time I worked in sales, knew very little about Benicia, and had never had anything I?d written published.

Upon arriving here I soon discovered the little coffee shop in Solano Square where I?d end up spending many mornings. On one particular morning there I met a nice young lady who sold ad space for the local newspaper: The Benicia Herald. As conversations between single people often do, the talk turned to dating, which led to me telling her of my idea to someday write an online dating and relationships column for a newspaper. She liked the idea and said she?d run it by her editor to see what he thought.

She called the next day to say the editor liked the idea as well and would I submit a sample of what I was proposing? I wrote the sample column, the newspaper ran it and I?ve been doing this ever since.

The first two lines of that very first column were:

?A number of years ago, after my divorce, I jumped back into the dating pool.

?And I very nearly drowned.?

And was that ever the truth. I?d been married for more than 12 years when, in 2002, my wife and I divorced. Until the events that led to our divorce occurred, I would have told anyone who asked that I?d be married to the same woman for the rest of my life ? and would have been happy to say as much. So when the time came to dust off my dating skills and get back in the fray, I was feeling more than a little lost ? and still a bit confused as to just how I got there.

Want to hear something interesting? I probably get as much out of these columns as many readers do.

Here?s what I do on a weekly basis: Review letters sent to me from, and conversations had with, readers about dating and relationship issues. Then I write something I feel may shed light on perhaps both the cause and solution of those issues. But do you notice how I do it? I typically start with a short anecdote from my own life that I feel is somehow like the situation I?m writing about.

Here?s the part that intrigues me: I think I write a lot of this advice to myself.

A few weeks back, I wrote a column titled, ?Are you here to pick up or drop off?? In it, I likened the dating sites to a Goodwill Store because we often go to the dating sites to, in essence, pick up a person someone else has cast off.

The advice I ended up giving in that one was basically as follows:

Guys: Women never stop testing us, so to preserve a marriage we, likewise, need to never stop being worthy of a passing grade. And women: Understand that the fella you just met online has probably been through the divorce wringer, so show a little patience with him and you might just end up with a good guy who?s better prepared for future relationships because he?s learned from past failures.

In August I wrote a column called ?Us and Them,? about a phenomenon I termed ?the cycles of attraction,? which spelled out the different pace at which men and women get into relationships. I explained that while men can go very fast at the beginning, they can slow down just as quickly, leaving a woman scratching her head wondering what just happened.

In October I wrote a follow-up to that one called ?Chase or Space,? in which I compared men to a superhero I used to watch on TV called Ultra Man who would run out of power when up against steep odds (and yes ,that?s how we men view new relationships), and who would often leave the scene only to later return and finish the job.

In it, I told women that if a guy signals he needs time away to himself, let him go; in fact, encourage it. And I wrote that if you do this rather than try to hold on tighter, you might just find that if he knows he can leave he?s more likely to stay.

It was just a couple of weeks after that that I wrote a little column called ?Lost in Translation,? in which I dissected a hit pop song that purported to be from a guy who really missed his old girlfriend, sung to that old girlfriend using very romantic language in an effort to get himself invited to her place for a night of romance ? but, as I pointed out, just one night.

I used that exercise in lyrics deconstruction to make the point that a man?s truth is often more easily seen in his actions than his words. And that perhaps women should listen less to what we say than watch what we do.

As I continued to instruct myself in the ways of love, it led to some soul searching of the ?Am I even capable of having what it is I say I really want?? variety. And so I wrote a column with the mildly sensationalistic title, ?Confessions of a Player,? in which I wrote how easy it is for men (myself included) to get caught up in the rapid-fire dating style of what we term ?dating sites.?

To contrast how men and women use these sites differently, I wrote a little farce I called ?Online relationshipping? in which I lampooned the fact that these sites seem to be geared much more toward how men go about getting into a relationship.

But I do tend toward the melodramatic on occasion (OK, all the time), and in the spirit of trying to lighten the mood I also penned some cheerier submissions. There was the one with the pithy title ?Because you?re good enough, you?re smart enough, and doggone it people like you,? in which I wrote that perhaps we should all lighten up just a touch, take a deep breath, and not take the whole dating site thing so darn seriously. I made the point that when women walk into a bar they seldom do so with the goal in mind of finding a guy to marry, so why put so much pressure on themselves to find Mr. Right on the dating sites?

This column is, ostensibly anyway, about online dating. As such I have tried to wrangle much of the content (be it regular old garden-variety dating advice or plain old relationship advice) under the umbrella of dating online. But every now and then I write about online dating in a very specific way, with a very intended effect in mind. One such column was ?Excuse me, but do you validate??

In that particular column, I made the point that if online dating sites were solely for purpose of finding Mr. or Ms. Right, then based on the incredibly low per capita incidence of that happening we probably would all have given up on the sites long ago.

But I went on to offer that maybe what?s going on is that the feeling of validation we get from our opposite sex counterparts ? as well as the sense of hope of finding someone for our own that being on such sites helps bring to us ? might be a clue to their real value.

And doesn?t that neatly wrap up online dating as a subject that we, you and me, have now pretty well figured out?

OK, so I?ve just summed up what I consider the most important advice I?ve given, in the best columns I?ve written, over the last year. What do you suppose that will lead me to write about next week?

John Gavin lives in Benicia.

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Building a Profitable Internet Network Marketing Business | Free ...

A large amount of folk enter the internet marketing business with stars in their eyes and most fail within a quarter of beginning. They roam around getting bits of info here and there, and cobble together a sort of unproven technique that?s cursed to failure from the beginning.

Internet Network Marketing Business Planning

Most internet network marketing businesses are run from home, and many of us just can?t disciple themselves sufficiently well to be in a position to target their business and avoid distraction. If you?ve worked in any kind of business before, particularly in an office, there might have been music playing but definitely not a television on all the time, no-one would ever be in a position to concentrate, so don?t try and do that when you home work. Go from the bedroom to the kitchen and get some breakfast and plan your breaks and what to do at dinner time, in most situations it?s going to be a sandwich made in the same kitchen. Then back to work till a time you set yourself. It?s easy to burn out telecommuting also , as the work is always there calling to you.

Understand the last three words in the term ?internet network marketing business? and accept that it involves networking and marketing and it is YOUR business and that?s what will pay the bills.

Joining ?network? and ?marketing? together no longer means simply getting an internet site together and hoping folks will come. It?s not like that. At first you will have to put plenty of effort into list building and getting leads, and there are many ways of going about that, some downright pointless and others very successful, but the most important thing direct from the start, is to have a system that you can follow, mentors which will help you, and a specific amount of knowledge and an entrepreneurial spirit.

Leads and lists are the seeds that get you sales and good quality, focused leads are what you are looking for, and without them you simply do not have an internet network marketing business!

And there are hundreds of courses on the topic on the internet, and it can be very hard to select the right one.

It stands to reason if you want to find out about something, you would like to learn from people who know what they are talking about, and those that earn amounts of money from network marketing that you can only fantasize about right now.

Hmmm, a whole bunch of experts pooling their collective concepts for the advantage of fighting marketers and those just setting out on that road. Sounds like a smart idea doesn?t it? A system that is continually updated and added to, bringing the newest ideas and methodologies in internet network marketing. Does something similar to which exist?

It certainly does. It is really well respected and has helps loads of people to achieve success every day. Click now to learn more.

To Get The Real Truth About Network Marketing CLICK HERE

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Upscale London boroughs say no no no to BT's broadband revolution, ugly green boxes

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/31/chelsea-kensington-council-reject-bt-broadband/

Between all of the delays, disappointment and a general lack of availability, many Brits can't seem to catch a break when it comes to getting up to speed with fast internet -- but this time it could be their own fault. BT's fiber optic rollout plans came to a screeching halt in Chelsea and Kensington after a staggering 96 of 108 applications for big green street cabinets housing the fiber were flat-out rejected. Neither local council is prepared to clutter its pristine streets with the "ugly" boxes. The firm said it'll concentrate on nearby areas that "have shown a greater eagerness to enjoy the benefits of broadband." It's a good thing there are no plans to paint their famous telephone booths green, or those might be out of a job as well.

Upscale London boroughs say no no no to BT's broadband revolution, ugly green boxes originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jun 2012 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cricket gets prepaid iPhone

FILE- In this Wednesday, May 30, 2012, file photo, a tourist uses his iPhone to photograph Federal Hall in New York's Financial District, Wednesday, May 30, 2012. Leap Wireless International Inc., the parent of the Cricket cellphone service, on Thursday, May 31, 2012, said it will be the first mainland U.S. phone company to sell the iPhone on a prepaid, no-contract basis. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

FILE- In this Wednesday, May 30, 2012, file photo, a tourist uses his iPhone to photograph Federal Hall in New York's Financial District, Wednesday, May 30, 2012. Leap Wireless International Inc., the parent of the Cricket cellphone service, on Thursday, May 31, 2012, said it will be the first mainland U.S. phone company to sell the iPhone on a prepaid, no-contract basis. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

(AP) ? Leap Wireless International Inc., the parent of the Cricket cellphone service, on Thursday said it will be the first mainland U.S. phone company to sell recent iPhone models on a prepaid, no-contract basis.

Starting June 22, Leap will sell the iPhone 4S starting at $500 and the iPhone 4 starting at $400. Service will cost $55 per month for unlimited calls, texting and data.

Leap Wireless International Inc., which is based in San Diego, focuses on selling no-contract service to low-income households. Its own network is limited to certain cities. In other places, it uses Sprint Nextel Corp.'s network.

The iPhone is compatible with only part of Leap's network, and the company is limiting sales to those areas, which include Houston and Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; Pittsburgh; Denver; and Salt Lake City.

Leap said the arrangement will be available in areas covering about 70 percent of its 6.2 million subscribers. Leap is the sixth-largest cellphone company in the U.S., as measured by number of subscribers.

Open Mobile, which serves Puerto Rico, became the first U.S. company to start selling the iPhone 4 and 4s on a no-contract, prepaid basis on May 18.

When the original iPhone launched in 2007, buyers could chose to set it up directly on an AT&T prepaid plan, But that option disappeared with later models. It has been possible to use imported or hacked "unlocked" phones on prepaid plans as well.

Leap's "unlimited" data service for the phone slows down once a customer user has racked up 2.3 gigabytes of usage since the start of a monthly billing cycle. That's a slightly lower limit than either Verizon or AT&T imposes under their "unlimited" plans.

Apple sells the iPhone at an average wholesale price of $647. The bigger phone companies then subsidize it by hundreds of dollars to sell it for $99 or $199. They count on making their money back in service fees over the life of a two-year contract. Since Leap sells the phone without a contract, it's subsidizing the phone less.

Larger carriers also sell the iPhone without a contract plan. But those phones cost more than iPhones bought through plans, and service costs the same as for phones used on a contract plan. Leap's plan is cheaper than what most iPhone customers pay.

Since the iPhone is so expensive, it's not a given that it's a good deal for a phone company to sell it. In a presentation to investors, Leap said it has committed $900 million over three years to buying iPhones. That's just 10 percent of its projected spending on phones, it said, and it doesn't expect iPhone sales to affect its operating income this year.

"We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think it was a money maker," said Leap CEO Doug Hutcheson, in an interview. But because of the high price of the phone, he doesn't expect that more than 10 percent of the company's customers will buy it.

"This is an important addition to our portfolio, but it isn't going to become our business," Hutcheson said.

Leap sells smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software for $100, and sometimes even less.

Investors initially cheered the news, sending Leap shares up in premarket trading, but the stock closed unchanged at $5.77.

The iPhone is hugely popular, but its price has kept it out of reach of many people who want it, across the world. When asked whether they could produce a cheaper model to satisfy demand, Apple executives have said that their first priority is making a good phone.

Missing from Leap's iPhone lineup is the 3GS, an older model that's still sold by AT&T. It's cheaper than the newer models, but doesn't work with Leap's or Sprint's networks.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Sprint, the three biggest cellphone companies in the U.S., already sell the iPhone, as do a half-dozen smaller, regional phone companies. The biggest companies that don't carry it are T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS Communications Inc. U.S. Cellular Corp., another regional carrier, said it turned down the chance to sell the phone because of its cost.

Associated Press

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A Fine Line in the Patent Wars : Dartmouth Business Journal

Posted by John Daniels on Thursday, May 31, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?

Imagine developing and patenting the technology that allows a user to return a ?sleeping? iPhone back to functionality. Apple did just this with its ?slide-to-unlock? feature, a defining characteristic of the iPhone that users have come to love. Specifically, Apple was granted a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the diagrams that it had submitted, showing a white rectangle with curved edges that, when dragged to the right by the touch of a finger, unlocks the device and directs the user to the home screen. Over the years, more and more smart phones have appeared with very similar features. After all, all devices need some way to unlock, and there are only so many ways to achieve this. The unlock feature, however, is an example of what has caused a great deal of controversy and led to the emergence of a recent phenomenon regarded by many as the ?Patent Wars.?

Certain Samsung phones allow a user to touch the center of a circle on the screen, and then unlock the device by dragging a finger to any point outside of the circle according to the user?s particular access code. In February, Apple filed suit against Samsung with claims that Samsung violated a series of its patents, including the slide-to-unlock feature. Apple and Samsung are currently engaged in a 20-lawsuit, 10-nation battle over this disagreement. Additionally, Apple has asserted claims against Motorola for alleged patent violations of similar nature. However, something unexpected happened earlier this year ? a Swedish company called Neonode Inc. declared that it had already been granted a patent for a version of the slide-to-unlock feature. Apple had unknowingly been beaten to its own idea, and arguably should neverhave been granted its patent to begin with. Stories such as this have become a familiar trend as innovators continue to develop new technology each and every day. Can a fine line between patents, particularly in the smartphone industry, ever be effectively established?

The answer to this question is extremely unclear, and whatever solution that may exist will likely be difficult to find. Thousands and thousands of characteristics of smartphones such as the unlock feature of the iPhone exist as patents. In fact, Google?s chief legal officer, David Drummond, has expressed that up to 250,000 different patents may apply to a single modern smart phone. After all, companies have claimed the rights to the most minuscule of features, and often the distinction between these features is highly ambiguous.

Professor Scott Stern, who teaches at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a patent expert who is well aware of the uncertainty involving patents of today?s technology industry.

?The trouble is that in this industry so often a patent is not a clearly defined property right, but a lottery ticket of uncertain value,? said Stern, who is convinced that this patent ambiguity unintentionally creates risk and cost. If patents no longer provide a guaranteed incentive to innovators, the enormous benefits of technology patents appear to be diminishing.

However, news of massive patent buyouts executed by some of the world?s largest technology companies has covered recent headlines. In 2011, Apple, Microsoft, and four other companies completed a $4.5 billion joint buyout of Nortel Networks, a bankrupt Canadian telecommunications maker. Google purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion last August, and Microsoft bought $1 billion worth of AOL patents in April of this year. The aforementioned buyouts value individual patents of each deal at $750,000, $400,000, and $1.3 million, respectively. These numbers are staggering. What use value do large numbers of patents bring to the arsenals of the world?s top technology companies, especially if patents are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from one another? What is causing this recent trend of massive patent acquisitions?

Historically, the main idea behind patents is to provide ongoing incentives for individual innovation. However, the original inventors of these ideas are largely forgotten in today?s world. Recently, the main premise behind the massive acquisitions of patents, particularly in the rapidly expanding field of smart phones and tabloids, has become increasingly geared towards security. Ownership of patents grants companies both a stronger legal and negotiating position when faced with the growing ambiguity of the world of technology patents. Loaded with large stockpiles of patents as a defense mechanism, companies have the increased capability to secure their products and defend against potential litigation. The potential for future innovation is also strengthened. The extremely high cost of eliminating these risks is thought to greatly outweigh potential future risks themselves.

It is difficult to say what the future may hold for technology patents. Interesting responses are already beginning to emerge. Just this April, Twitter announced that it will allow its engineering inventors to veto lawsuits against alleged infringers of patents that they develop. Under the agreement, Twitter cannot sue another company or person without the consent of the engineer to whom the patent was rewarded. This action may provide an effective model for companies to avoid expensive legal messes, such as those currently fought by companies such as Apple.

One thing is certain ? too many technology patents remain vague and excessively broad. Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers School of Law, is correct when he states, ?When you have companies spending hundreds of millions in litigation, something is seriously wrong with our patent system.? Patenting of technology products will continue to face struggles unless lawmakers scrutinize the recent troubling trends and develop an appropriate response.

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