“The Korean Times reported late yesterday that David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer (CLO), said that the company would continue to defend the Android ecosystem amid the rising tension in global patent disputes,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple. “While this is Google’s standing good-guy routine in the public, the fact is that the Department of Justice, FTC and International Telecommunication Union don’t seem to agree with them.”
“In fact an international Patent Roundtable event being held today will be highlighting Google’s practices in an attempt to find a remedy to halt damaging essential patent tactics being employed today that could harm the smartphone industry as a whole,” Purcher reports. “Apple will be in attendance at this event and didn’t release a pre-event statement.”
“The New York Times reported yesterday that ‘The Justice Department, when it approved Google’s acquisition of Motorola and the consortium’s purchase of Nortel’s patents earlier this year, issued a statement praising the ‘clear commitments’ by Apple and Microsoft to license standard patents on fair terms,'” Purcher reports. “It also noted their pledge not to try to use such patents to seek court injunctions to stop shipments of rivals’ products. The Justice Department’s statement when on to state that ‘Google’s commitments were more ambiguous and do not provide the same direct confirmation of its standard-essential patent licensing policies.'”
Purcher writes, “At the end of the day, Google is caught once again playing up their ‘good guy’ routine of being the defender of innovation in the public while authorities such as the FTC, Justice Department and now International Telecommunication Union (ITU) see a much different legal stand that Google is definitely using that is anything but good for the technology sector.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]