“Among Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.’s more than 17,000 patents, a group of 18 may prove most useful in Google Inc.’s effort to fend off litigation targeting the Android mobile platform,” Brian Womack and Susan Decker report for Bloomberg. “Google is counting on its $12.5 billion acquisition of Libertyville, Illinois-based Motorola Mobility to strengthen its patent lineup as Apple and Microsoft Corp. challenge Android.”
“The inventions date back to 1994 and form the heart of three Motorola lawsuits against Apple Inc., making them among the stars of the portfolio, said David Mixon, a patent lawyer at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings in Huntsville, Alabama,” Womack and Decker report. “They cover technology essential to the mobile-device industry, including location services, antenna designs, e-mail transmission, touch- screen motions, software-application management and third- generation wireless… One patent from 2001 disables a ‘touch sensitive’ sensor when a smartphone is near a user’s head to prevent inadvertent hang-ups or dialing. Another from 1994 aims to increase data storage, while a third enables users to control when a global positioning system sends their location data over a network.”
Womack and Decker report, “Even with a stronger patent portfolio for Google, Apple is likely to continue to pursue its patent battles against HTC and Samsung, said Peter Misek, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. in New York.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Google only spent $694.44 million apiece for those 18 patents.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Since84” for the heads up.]