Google has announced a patent pool for Android, attempting to avoid the legal disputes which have plagued the smartphone industry in recent years. This can be seen as opening yet another front against Apple, which initiated many of the lawsuits of the last decade, but is now under pressure from legal actions by patent giants like Nokia. However, it is also another step towards a broader rethink of the IPR licensing system which governs the mobile industry, and a recognition that the current system is broken, and will be entirely unworkable in the Internet of Things, with its huge numbers of low cost devices. The mobile industry has resisted the death of its secretive system of bilateral patents licensing deals…