Patent Wars: New Hope For Google With 1023 More Patents Bought From IBM

By: EW News Desk Team   Date: 16 September 2011

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16 September 2011

Google has once again acquired more than 1,000 patents from IBM, in a continuous effort to strengthen its patent portfolio against impending legal attacks on its Android mobile operating system and its partner manufacturers.

The company behind the world’s largest search engine picked up an additional 1,023 patents from IBM last month, following an acquisition of 1,030 patents from the same company in July this year, reported Bloomberg.

According to records that appeared on the US Patent and Trademark Office’s website yesterday, Google acquired its latest arsenal of patents on August 17. Jim Prosser, a spokesman for the Mountain View, California- based company, confirmed the transaction to Bloomberg, though he did not provide any details or financial terms in regards to the patents.

The news comes just a week after Google sold nine patents to its manufacturing partner HTC Corp. to use for an impending lawsuit against Apple. Four of the patents sold were originally owned by Motorola but went to Google after it bought over Motorola Mobility one month back.

Related: Patent Wars: HTC Strikes Back at Apple with Google Patents

Related: Google to Buy Motorola Mobility, Hedge Against Patents Lawsuits

While the price Google paid for the 2,053 IBM patents it now owns was not disclosed, the company is said to have spent billions on a stockpile of intellectual property in hopes of deterring any potential aggressor that might otherwise consider accusing Google of infringement.

In a post on the Official Google Blog on August 3, David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, described what he considered to be a “hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.” The goal of the alleged campaign, Mr. Drummond said, was to make devices based on Google’s Android mobile operating system appear less attractive to consumers.

Apart from HTC, Samsung is another Android mobile phone currently being sued by Apple over its Galaxy S line of smartphones and tablets in ongoing lawsuits in 12 courts in nine countries and on four continents.

Google is also currently in another patent battle with Oracle over the use of Java in the Android mobile operating system. Last month, the company publicly traded shots online with Microsoft, arguing about patents via Twitter and in blog posts.


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