Techcrunch reports this afternoon that Google has bid $900 million as the stalking horse bid for the Nortel patent portfolio. The bid is officially reported on Google’s own blog. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/patents-and-innovation.html
Fascinating. We did expect and predict that Apple would bid. Like Google, it was a later entrant into the patent wars.
The post is a fascinating read. More to follow.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Since Intellectual Ventures started suing, I now completely disbelieve the claims of any business entity that it is buying up patents for “defensive purposes only.” However, even when it does inevitably start suing, Google will likely be able to evade the “patent troll” label (and thus take advantage of judicial preference for “practicing” entities over NPEs/PAEs), since it also engages in R&D. Clever.