“Google’s $12.5 billion buy of Motorola Mobility might hurt Apple’s ability to pressure the Android ecosystem and the iPhone maker may try to strike back by buying up more patent troves, Jefferies & Co said,” Sayantani Ghosh reports for Reuters. “The brokerage sees Nokia, InterDigital, and Research In Motion’s patents as potential targets for Apple.”
“‘We believe Apple is a licensee of Nokia and pays significant royalties for cross-licensing… Nokia likely has at least 50 essential 4G patents and likely over 100 essential 3G patents,’ the brokerage said,” Ghosh reports. “Jefferies said RIM spent over $5 billion in acquiring and developing its patent portfolio, according to its calculations, and has critical security related patents that Apple could pursue. Based on the 63 percent premium Google paid for Motorola Mobility, RIM’s could be valued at something over $20 billion.”
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Ghosh reports, “InterDigital, which is looking to sell itself and was reportedly being courted by Google, may also interest Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
He who controls the patents, controls the universe.
Sad but true in many situations. There is a lot of talk about revamping the patent system. I hope it’s more than talk. And it’s not just cell phones it’s all things patented. Too many lawyers getting rich for no reason. That money could go to better places. Like employee salaries and research.
Apple could buy all communications-related patents in the world and would not even notice comparing to more than $100 billion reserved by the end of this year.
Those so called “ANALyst must understand that Apple is not making the same old phones, they literally re invented the phone with the iPhone. For the wireless circuitry they already are paying royalties.
There is no company out there Apple can buy to protect its iphone since apple invented the iPhone and for such reason, Google, Nokia, Rim or any other company does not have any iPhone related patent useful against apple.
Apple does not need to buy any other company to protect the iPhone, only to improve it, may be.
And the rest of the iPhone cloners, can’t buy any company to protect them, or even they pay royalties to apple or stop cloning the iPhone.
“Might hurt Apple’s ability to pressure the Android ecosystem”. You can bet that AAPL has been going for GOOG’s throat from the beginning. Just like all the other players, AAPL is out to win. Whatever it takes. Only the strong survive. My money is (literally) on AAPL.
Begun, the patent wars have.
The shroud of the dark side has fallen
@troy
You have a seriously simplistic view of technology. Apple has not, in fact, re-invented the technology that runs the cellular networks. If Apple want’s the iPhone to work on any network (CDMA, GSM, 3G, 4G-LTE etc.), either Apple has to license any of the relevant patents or the suppliers of the communication chips have to. That was the reason for the Apple purchase of the Nortel patents.
This ignores the multitude of patents and licenses that address the software side of the iPhone. Apple did not invent the entire world of computing, no matter what you seem to believe, and they pay a lot of money in royalties to a lot of other companies.
Thank you for your honest unbiased post. So well put.
“Apple did not invent the entire world of computing”.
Technically you are correct. However they invented most of the present day world of personal computing including desk top, laptop, tablet and smartphone.
Apple got patents.
No they didn’t. They simply made it better. C’mon, Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet either. But he didn’t make anything better. Please be realistic.
Had to drag that pathetic story into this discussion, didn’t you? Anyone can bring up dozens of similar incidents over the past few decades. Let it go, (almost) no one appreciates your political FUD in this forum, GM.
While all these companies have bazillions of patents on doing obvious stuff, Apple has some GUI patents that nobody has.
What’s the remaining shelf life of the important patents? 10 yrs? 15 yrs? (it may get mentioned in one of the SEC filings)
And then, what’s the remaining window of usefulness of these important patents? 5 yrs? 7 yrs?
The point of these 2 questions is — if GOOG spent $12.5B substantially for the patents, then it spent a significant portion (if not 100%) of that $12.5B on perishable commodities.
Will the intended use justify that outlay of $12.5B? Will the patents shield them from $12.5B in damages, or protect a business line that will generate north of $12.5B over the remaining life of those patents? Will they generate up to $12.5B in business from these?
I’m thinking not. Those MMI patents didn’t shield MMI from MSFT or AAPL, and won’t shield GOOG as much as people might assume.
As someone noted, for a product initially launched to disrupt their competitors for nominal costs to themselves, Android has now become a very expensive and capital-intensive property for GOOG.