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A comment on Microsoft buys AR headset patents for $100-150M – report. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft buys AR headset patents for $100-150M – report by _delirium on Sunday March 30, 2014 @08:32AM (#7495981)
In most cases a couple of years worth of profits from monopoly should suffice. In reality it depends on how much was spent on the initial innovation.

One tricky issue is also the lead time to market. In the synthesis example, Yamaha came out with a synth within ~2 years of licensing the patent. But in some areas (like medicine) it can be common for it to take 5-10 years for a product to come out, in which case a 5-year patent would be worthless, because it would expire before you can sell anything.

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Re:Microsoft buys AR headset patents for $100-150M – report by lugg on Sunday March 30, 2014 @12:45PM (#7496747)
Sorry I should have probably continued on, there was a bit of an implication here:

In reality it depends on how much was spent on the initial innovation [and how long it takes to reap the return on that investment].

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