UPDATED 12:09 EDT / JULY 29 2011

Google Petitions Patent Lawmakers, Bulks Up Portfolio

Google announced on Thursday that it had acquired a group of patents from IBM, even as growing interest in intellectual property suggests a coming legal face-off between Oracle, Apple, Microsoft and Google.  The 1,030 patents acquired cover a broad range of technologies, including memory and microprocessor chip fabrication/architecture, server and router design, and software programming such as relational databases, object oriented programming and more.

“Like many tech companies, at times we’ll acquire patents that are relevant to our business,” the Mountain View, California-based company said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

Google was recently involved in a bidding war with Apple, Microsoft, and others over more than 6,000 patent filings from Nortel. It was a war that the search giant lost when a group comprised of Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion, Ericsson, Sony, and EMC joined together to bid $4.5 billion in cash.  Google had $39.1 billion in cash and short-term investments as of June, putting in an initial $900 million offer in April.

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 also aims to curb abuse of the patent system. It’s calling on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to rein in lawsuits, and asking the US Patent and Trademark Office to take closer looks at patents being used in litigation.

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, also 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 US Patent and Trademark Office to take closer looks at patents being used in litigation.

“The tech industry has a significant problem,” Google General Counsel Kent Walker said in an interview earlier this week. “Software patents are kind of gumming up the works of innovation.” Google’s rivals have said the Mountain View, California- based company is critical of the patent system because it has few patents of its own, jumping into an established industry using a product without proper licensing and attribution.

“It is a little step forward,” said patent expert Florian Mueller of FOSSPatents. “It is an area that Google needs to address, and it is a move in the right direction.”

“But the problem is that we don’t know how many or what patents have been acquired.”

“IBM produces around 5,000 patents a year, so it is unclear whether this means that the two may be forming a useful partnership here, or indeed how useful they are at all.”

“However every transaction is progress, and I am sure that they will want to reassure the Android ecosystem with such efforts.”

The company is calling for large-scale patent reform, even as its Android mobile operating system faces infringement suits on at least six fronts. But competitors assert that Google is critical of the patent system because it finds itself outmatched by larger, more established technology companies with bigger patent portfolios.

Google is said to be interested in acquiring InterDigital, a Pennsylvania-based company with patents related to high-speed mobile phone networks. Reports that Apple and Google may bid on the company drove its value up more than 50 percent, to $3.2 billion earlier this week.


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