“In a recent conference call with investors, Apple’s chief financial officer was unsurprisingly tight-lipped, but did admit he thinks Google spent ‘a lot of money’ to acquire Motorola,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.

“Peter Oppenheimer took part this week in a conference call hosted by investment firm Gleacher & Company,” Hughes reports. “When asked about Google’s announcement on Monday that it would acquire Motorola, the Apple senior vice president reportedly commented on the sale price by saying: ‘$12.5 billion is a lot of money.’”

Hughes reports, “When asked about the Google-Motorola combination during this week’s conference call, Oppenheimer said Apple strongly believes in competition, but that companies must invent their own technology rather than take the ideas of others. He said customers should be allowed to choose what is the superior product on the open market. The CFO also reiterated the company’s stance that Apple will “vigorously” defend its intellectual property as necessary. In keeping with that strategy, Apple is currently involved in patent infringement suits with a number of major companies, including HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and Kodak.”

Read more in the full article here.