What made the Internet work was the fact that it was a royalty-free, open standard. You could build on it, but there was no admission price for using it, so everyone did. (Illustration from the Daily Telegraph.)

But since the emergence of the Internet, in the mid-1990s, we've had the copyright wars and the rush to patent everything in sight. This trend is going to slow western companies going forward, and give the future (in my view) to Asian companies that innovate first and call the lawyers only after the market is won.

You can see this trend in action around Zigbee.

Integration is necessary so that Zigbee can interoperate with other standards, like 802.11, and so that lots of functions can go on a single chip, lowering costs.

A little Maryland outfit called MobilePro hired some engineers who solved these problems, but before it goes anywhere, they're rushing to the patent office.

As a result, MobilePro's technology will have a harder time making it as a standard, other engineers are unable to see or it be able to use it for some years, and Always-On innovations will be delayed.

Had the two Korean engineers behind MobilePro's advance done this work in their own country, it's likely products would emerge before patents were demanded. It's that delay, as much as anything else, that slows American innovation.

The market must come before the lawyers.