Google updated its official blog today with some harsh words for Microsoft, Apple, and the rest of the pack that bought Nortel’s patents — mainly: these companies are not innovative, they just use litigation, and these practices are anti-competitive.
“We’re not naïve,” said Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond towards the end of his blog post. “But in this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we’re determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it.”
Drummond made no use of masking which companies he’s referencing. Part of his post underscored heavily that several companies are going after Android by acquiring patents and pressuring manufactures to pay up, incidentally increasing costs for the end consumer.
The Nortel patents, 6,000 of which were auctioned off starting at $1 billion after the company went bankrupt, were finally purchased on July 29th for more than four times that at $4.5 billion by Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Sony, Resarch in Motion, and other companies, ZDNet points out. Drummond believes they banded together to make sure Google was never able to acquire them.
“I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on,” he stated.
This wouldn’t be the first time Google has talked out about the patent wars against their mobile operating system, Android. Just recently Eric Schmidt said that Apple, and several other companies, are not innovative; they just use lawsuits and the litigation system. In fact, this is somewhat a rehashing of that statement.
Google says it’s looking into whether or not “Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for anti-competitive means” and if so, “the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.”
