Are we by any chance in a patent bubble?
It seems that companies with money are throwing obscene amounts of money just to get "patents". It looks like a mad gold rush. It is embarrassing.
In other Google and Motorola news, it’s time to go back to talking patents. Google announced its intended acquisition of Motorola Mobility last week.
For $12.5 billion, Google would be getting the rights to approximately 17,000 patents as well as another 7,500 pending applications. That’s quite the step up considering Google only has roughly 1,000 to start with at the moment.
However, out of all of those patents, only 18 would be of any actual value to the Goog, according to Bloomberg:
The inventions date back to 1994 and form the heart of three Motorola lawsuits against Apple Inc. (AAPL), making them among the stars of the portfolio, said David Mixon, a patent lawyer at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings in Huntsville, Alabama. They cover technology essential to the mobile-device industry, including location services, antenna designs, e-mail transmission, touch- screen motions, software-application management and third- generation wireless.
Of course, 18 might be all that Google needs to back off from being so defensive and solidify its fight against that “hostile, organized campaign” that Google asserted its competitors were waging against Android.
Dean Becker, CEO of Palm Beach, Florida-based ICAP Patent Brokerage also told Bloomberg that Google only needs a few to bolster its legal position against such rivals.
This might not be the only occasion in which tech giants are fighting over patent portfolios filled by the thousands for only a handful to protect themselves. Just look at Kodak, InterDigital and Nortel. This is really the perfect time for these flailing companies and more out there to sell off their patents for more than they are probably worth before this bubble bursts.
Related:
- Microsoft vs. Motorola: A look ahead to next week’s ITC patent trial
- Nokia CEO sees ‘danger ahead’ for Android phone makers
- Judge denies Google’s witness complaint in Microsoft-Motorola dispute
- Can Google’s purchase of Motorola save Google TV?
- Google’s “highly proprietary source code”: unfair edge for Motorola?
