After having filed for bankruptcy in 2009, Nortel will now receive $900 million on the patent portfolio from Google. As a response to the current trend in the industry, that of taking each opportunity to sue competitors for patent infringement, Google is now taking all precautions in order to prevent losing money on such lawsuit and also considers that this patent portfolio will greatly benefit its open-source and communications projects. As Google puts it on its blog:

‘So after a lot of thought, we’ve decided to bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio in the company’s bankruptcy auction. Today, Nortel selected our bid as the “stalking-horse bid,” which is the starting point against which others will bid prior to the auction. If successful, we hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community—which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome—continue to innovate. In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it’s the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners.’

In the past few weeks we systematically covered patent infringements lawsuits, either filed by Kodak as a desperate cry for money and attention as in the last few year found itself outdated by giants such as Apple, Samsung et al, or by Microsoft that is not doing very well with its WP7 and hits back at Google’s Android by suing Barnes & Noble’s Nook for patent infringement. If this wasn’t enough, Nokia was contaminated with the patent infringement lawsuit ‘virus’ as well and asked Apple for damage compensation.

It’s a shame these companies are trying each possible way of stopping competitors pushing on the market attractive products or find in such lawsuits solutions for loading up their treasuries instead of focus all their efforts on developing innovative products.