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Google buys over 1,000 IBM patents to bolster portfolio amidst increasing intellectual-property lawsuits

“Google Inc., facing a growing threat of intellectual-property lawsuits, acquired a batch of patents this month from International Business Machines Corp. to bolster its portfolio,” Devin Banerjee and Brian Womack report for Bloomberg.

“The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on July 11 and 12 recorded more than 1,000 patents assigned to Mountain View, California-based Google by IBM,” Banerjee and Womack report. “They cover a range of topics, including microprocessing chips, regional databases and memory fabrication and architecture, said Bill Slawski, president of SEO by the Sea Inc., a Warrenton, Virginia-based research firm specializing in search-engine optimization.”

Banerjee and Womack report, “Google’s Android mobile-operating system has been targeted in at least six legal complaints, increasing its need for intellectual property to defend the company against litigation.”

“Google, the world’s largest Internet search company, aims to curb abuses of the patent system. It’s calling on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to rein in lawsuits, and asking the Patent and Trademark Office to take closer looks at patents being used in litigation,” Banerjee and Womack report. “Google’s rivals have said the company is critical of the patent system because it has few patents of its own and entered a smartphone market where companies had been researching and selling products for years before Android phones went on sale in 2008.”

Read more in the full article here.
 

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]

Related articles:
In wake of Nortel patent auction loss, Google general counsel calls for patent reform – July 26, 2011
Google’s Schmidt: Apple not responding with innovation, they’re responding with lawsuits – July 19, 2011
Google’s Schmidt worried and disappointed over Apple consortium’s Nortel patent win – July 8, 2011

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