InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[vg_future]

Interesting article from techcrunch............

http://seekingalpha.com/article/287595-google-s-motorola-acquisition-is-brilliant-or-really-stupid?source=yahoo

I liked this part and the article gets interesting from this part onwards

But those patents. Those glorious, wonderful patents.

In losing the Nortel patent auction to Apple, Microsoft, RIM (RIMM), and others, Google lost out on 6,000+ patents. With a battle over the InterDigital (IDCC) patents just getting started, there was a pretty decent chance they were going to lose another 8,800+ to their rivals. But with the Motorola buy, Google gains at least 17,000 patents. And if some other applications go through, perhaps as many as 25,000 patents. In one fell-swoop. Crazy.

It raises Google's patent pool from around 2,000 - over 1,000 of which are from a deal they just did with IBM - to around 20,000. That's around what Microsoft has. And nearly double what Apple has. Deterrent obtained, right?

Well, not so fast. As FOSS Patents points out, Motorola's patent pool may not go far enough to cancel out some key patents owned by Google's main rivals. Remember, both Apple and Microsoft were suing Motorola well before this new deal was born. Those cases remain ongoing, but FOSS' Florian Mueller believes that Apple and more so, Microsoft, have the upper hand in each.


-vg_future