Google Dumps Motorola, Keeps The Patents

from the but-of-course dept

Back when Google first bought Motorola Mobility it was obvious that it was entirely about the patents. While there are still plenty of questions as to whether or not those patents are any good, Google needed to get its hands on a big bunch of patents for defensive reasons pretty quickly, and after losing out on Nortel's patents, picking up Motorola was apparently the quickest way. In fact, quite a few people expected Google to just dump Motorola's handset business quickly, in part to avoid competing with a variety of other Android partners, like Samsung and HTC. We even predicted that Google would likely sell off the handset business and keep the patents. However, Google insisted for a while that it was really going to make a go of being in the handset business itself.

Well, that little pipedream is now over, with Google selling off the handset business to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. Some are pointing out the rather massive difference between this and the initial purchase price of $12.4 billion, but that leaves out a lot: mainly, Google is keeping the patents and just licensing them back to the company. In 2012, Google claimed that it valued the patents at $5.5 billion. Also, it got $2.9 billion in cash from Motorola, and I'd imagine that's not going to Lenovo too... Instead, at the time of the acquisition, Google said it valued Motorola's customer relationships at $730 million and "other net assets" at $670 million -- and then had another $2.6 billion in goodwill (more or less the premium Google had to pay to get Motorola to sell). Given that, the sale isn't a huge "loss", though it does make Google look kind of silly for pretending it was really in the hardware business for a bit.

In the end, just as we predicted at the beginning, this is a story of the silly things a tech company is forced to do these days because of our stupid patent laws. The end result here pretty much confirms it all. Google shelled out $12.4 billion for a bunch of patents and hung onto a hardware business it never really wanted, and which it has now discarded. Without the pointless patent battles, it's unlikely Google ever would have bothered. So: would we be better off in a world where Google had actually been able to invest that money into making better offerings? Or where Motorola's investors got it?

Filed Under: handsets, patents
Companies: google, lenovo, motorola mobility

Intellectual Ventures Sues Google/Motorola Mobility Yet Again, Using Highly Questionable Nokia Patents

from the look-at-that dept

Two years ago, we wrote about Intellectual Ventures suing Motorola Mobility over a really random collection of patents in Delaware. Apparently, that wasn't enough, because, IV has gone back to the well to file a totally different patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola Mobility on a different set of totally random and highly questionable patents, this time in the southern district of Florida. The patents in play:

• 5,790,793: Method and system to create, transmit, receive and process information, including an address to further information
• 7,136,392: System and method for ordering data messages having differing levels of priority for transmission over a shared communication channel
• 6,121,960: Touch screen systems and methods
• 7,382,771: Mobile wireless hotspot system
• 7,564,784: Method and arrangement for transferring information in a packet radio service
• 6,170,073: Method and apparatus for error detection in digital communications
• 7,848,353: Method, communication system and communication unit for synchronisation for multi-rate communication

If these sound like a set of fairly random and extremely broad patents, you'd have a point. Just take a look at that first one, which is basically claiming the ability of a computer system to receive a URL (say, in an email message) and automatically pull part of the page in to the first computer -- ie., it's a patent on a really basic and obvious concept, to proactively pull data from a website referenced in a link as a sort of preview. As is so often the case with patents like this, this is the kind of thing lots of people talked about around the time it was patented, but which people didn't do because other aspects of the infrastructure weren't ready yet, such as bandwidth (i.e., in 1995, people didn't want to push too much to a user's computer, because there was a good chance they were speeding along on a 2400 baud modem).

Most of the other patents are similarly broad or obvious concepts that were generally not being done because of other factors, not because there was anything non-obvious about the idea, or that it was particularly difficult to do. A patent is supposed to incentivize someone to invent something that wouldn't otherwise be invented. That's not happening here.

And, remember, this is the same Intellectual Ventures that claims it that it focuses on "high quality" patents.

Oh yeah, also, for all the talk about IV's inventive operations, not a single one of these patents originated with IV. And they're not from the proverbial "independent inventor" IV likes to claim it's helping. The 784 and 073 patents both came from Nokia, while the other patents originated with a variety of other companies: NetDelivery, Conexant, ViA, In Motion and IP Wireless. Most of the companies are still in business. It's unclear if anyone -- such as Nokia -- retains an interest in those patents, but that would be a pretty slimy move to pass off patents to IV to avoid suing a direct competitor themselves. As Groklaw rightly notes, this certainly has all the hallmarks of privateering, where big companies pass off their patents to some trolls to do their dirty work. It's just that, in this case, the troll is the world's largest, Intellectual Ventures.

Filed Under: patent troll, patents, privateering
Companies: google, intellectual ventures, motorola mobility, nokia

EU Dings Google's Motorola Mobility Unit For Patent Abuse

from the still-doesn't-make-any-sense dept

We're still confused as to why Google has continued to have Motorola Mobility play the role of a patent bully ever since they bought it. Over a year ago, we suggested that Google could make a real statement on patents by stopping its aggressive patent licensing program via Motorola. After all, Google bought Motorola Mobility just a few weeks after the company appeared to be taking a strong stance against patent bullying. Ever since, it has seemed rather hypocritical for Motorola Mobility to have kept on being a patent bully.

And it seems to be backfiring all over the place. It was the one real area that Google got in trouble over with the FTC's antitrust investigation. And, the patent legal fight with Microsoft hasn't gone well for Motorola Mobility either. And, now, the latest bit of news is that the EU is coming down on Motorola Mobility for seeking an injunction over standard-essential patents as well.

Honestly, this whole thing has left me really confused. The patent aggression hasn't worked out at all for Google, is leaving them wide open to fines and complaints from various powerful government bodies, isn't doing much in the courts and (most importantly) is leaving the company itself wide open to charges of hypocrisy. Why not just do the right thing -- the same thing that Google itself has done in the past, and which it has spoken out about on numerous occasions: stop being a patent bully. It makes no sense that they company has continued down this path.

Filed Under: eu, patents, seps
Companies: google, motorola mobility

Google Launches Patent Attack On Apple In A Disappointing First For The Company

from the double-standards dept

For years, despite being the defendant in tons of patent suits, and despite having a decent patent portfolio of its own, Google had never gone on the offensive with its patents against others. With the purchase of Motorola Mobility, it inherited an ongoing court case against Apple, which was unceremoniously dumped by Judge Posner. However, now there's news that Motorola Mobility has gone to the ITC to seek an injunction against Apple for the iPhone, iPad and some of its computers as well. Filing at the ITC can only lead to an injunction, rather than monetary damages, but the threat of an injunction is pretty big no matter what, and can often force a company to pay up.

What's disappointing here is that, even though this is coming from the Motorola side of things, as far as I can tell, it's the first time that Google itself could be described as a patent aggressor. For a company that had been coming out vocally about just how broken the patent system was, and which seemed to be fighting the good fight on stopping such abuses of patents to block competition, this is disappointing.

Yes, it's typical for companies, as they get bigger, older and less innovative, to start becoming patent aggressors, but Google had kept away from doing so for a long time, and certainly appeared, publicly, to have no interest in going down this road. Combined with the company's recent decision to cave on copyright issues as well, it seems that Google is taking some dangerous steps around copyright and patent law -- both of which may go against its own long-term best interests.

Filed Under: android, injunctions, ios, itc, patents, smartphones
Companies: apple, google, motorola mobility

SGI Back From The Dead (Again) And Suing Tons Of Companies For Patent Infringement

from the troll-troll-troll-troll dept

Back when I moved to Silicon Valley, Silicon Graphics Inc., (SGI) was still a hot place to work. They were still pumping out cool machines and had a reputation for a fun corporate culture. Of course, that collapsed pretty quickly over the next few years, as SGI totally misjudged the market trends and fell victim to the innovator's dilemma. Basically, SGI never could come to terms with the fact that its premium products were going to be increasingly undercut as cheaper commodity technology improved. Back in 2006, we noted that what remained of SGI had indicated that it planned to resurrect the company by going patent troll. However, we thought we'd avoided that ignoble result when SGI sold most of its assets to Rackable for a mere $25 million three years ago. Silly us for assuming those patents would just go away.

While Rackable changed its name to Silicon Graphics International... the original company actually retained the patents, and renamed itself Graphics Properties Holdings... and over the last few years has been suing lots of companies for patent infringement. In the last year alone it has sued Apple, HTC, LG, RIM, Samsung, Sony, Acer, ASUS, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio and Motorola Mobility.

As the link above notes, while some of GPH's patents are relatively early, it appears that lots of similar inventions predated key patents. However, the early date may make those patents look stronger, and give GPH much more leverage in getting companies to pay up -- or risk losing the ability to produce devices with nice graphics capabilities.

Filed Under: patent troll, silicon valley
Companies: acer, apple, asus, htc, lg, motorola mobility, panasonic, rim, samsung, sgi, sharp, sony, toshiba, vizio

If The DOJ Really Wants To Review Anticompetitive Patenting, Why Doesn't It Look At Intellectual Ventures?

from the seems-like-a-more-reasonable-target dept

We were just noting the oddities of Intellectual Ventures suing Motorola Mobility Inc. as MMI is likely being acquired by Google -- since Google is an IV investor, and supposedly immune from suits over IV's patents. It would seem like once a deal closes, that the lawsuit would be moot. Along those lines, the folks at M*CAM, who spend a lot of time doing detailed analysis of patent quality, have written a compelling open letter to the Justice Department. You see, the Justice Department is investigating the Motorola Mobility buy to see if it would be anti-competitive. Now, pretty much everyone (including Google) has admitted that the Motorola Mobility buy is mostly about the patents, and patents are technically a monopoly, but they're a legal monopoly. However, the pooling of patents can be anti-competitive. Either way, M*CAM can't quite figure out the reasons here, noting that vertical integration isn't seen as a problem by the Justice Department (see, Oracle, Sun). But if it's the patents that are the issue, M*CAM suggests the DOJ is "looking into the wrong thing:"

There’s a shakedown going on, but you’re too concerned with the parking meters across the street to hear the tinkling of coins on the sidewalk.

Because speaking of patent pooling... an intellectual venture across that street will lead you to a nice pool to dive into. And lucky for you, we happen to have the insight to light up that pool for a nightly swim, should you decide to take the jump in on behalf of Lady Justice.

Yes, the letter then shifts into an analysis of how Intellectual Ventures appears to be involved in anti-competitive behavior, that appears to go against the DOJ's own guidelines on what constitutes an anti-competitive patent pool. It's worth reading the whole thing, and wondering which company is likely to do more to hinder innovation over the next five years: Google merged with Motorola Mobility or Intellectual Ventures?

Filed Under: antitrust, justice department, patents
Companies: google, intellectual ventures, motorola mobility

Why Did Intellectual Ventures Sue Motorola Mobility... Even As Google Is An IV Investor?

from the oddities dept

PW points out one additional oddity in the announcement last week that Intellectual Ventures is suing Motorola Mobility for patent infringement: it's that Google is one of the investors in Intellectual Ventures -- meaning that it's supposedly immune from lawsuits from IV's portfolio. That leads to a number of open questions. Perhaps IV was trying to sneak the lawsuit in before the merger closes -- but that doesn't make much sense either. The merger is likely to close long before any lawsuit gets anywhere. And, at that point, wouldn't the lawsuit be moot, since Google supposedly should have access to IV's entire portfolio? Or is there trouble in paradise between IV and one of its own investors?

As you may have noted, Google has been a lot more aggressive lately, in talking about the problems of the patent system, and specifically of the way patents are being used to hurt innovation. The company has certainly indicated that it's interested in much more advanced patent reform to fix many of these problems. That's the kind of thing that could hurt IV. So, perhaps this is a "shot across the bow" of Google? An attempt to send a message to one of its own investors not to "rock the boat"? That's about the best I can figure, because the lawsuit doesn't seem to make much sense otherwise.

And, in the meantime, shouldn't this actually scare off others from signing one of IV's shakedown deals? If IV is willing to sue anyway, then what good are those deals?

Filed Under: patents
Companies: google, intellectual ventures, motorola mobility

Intellectual Ventures Sues Motorola Mobility For Infringement; Guess Who's Trying To Cause Trouble For Google?

from the ah,-the-fun-fights-of-billionaires dept

You can almost hear Intellectual Ventures' lawyers cackling with glee in announcing that they've filed their latest patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola Mobility -- the company that Google is buying for its patents. Clearly, this is a shot at Google. As for the patents in question, let's take a look:

• 7,810,144: File transfer system for direct transfer between computers
• 6,412,953: Illumination device and image projection apparatus comprising the device
• 7,409,450: Transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) packet-centric wireless point to multi-point (PTMP) transmission system architecture
• 7,120,462: Portable computing, communication and entertainment device with central processor carried in a detachable handset
• 6,557,054: Method and system for distributing updates by presenting directory of software available for user installation that is not already installed on user stastion
• 6,658,464: User station software that controls transport, storage, and presentation of content from a remote source

If that looks like an odd and random selection of patents, well, that's the idea. IV has its stacks upon stacks of patents, and they just rifle through them to find something -- anything -- that anyone they want to go after might infringe on. And, voila! open the cash register.

Filed Under: patents
Companies: google, intellectual ventures, motorola mobility