Google LLC today announced an agreement to acquire smartwatch-related intellectual property from Fossil Group Inc., the company behind brands such as Michael Kors, Kate Spade New York and Diesel for $40 million.

The deal sees Google acquire IP “related to a smartwatch technology currently under development by Fossil Group.” A portion of Fossil’s research and development team will also join Google under the deal.

Exactly what the IP involves is not entirely clear other than it’s related to smartwatches and will result in the launch of “new product innovation that’s not yet hit the market.”

Speaking to Wearable, Greg McKelvey, executive vice president and chief strategy and digital officer of the Fossil Group, said the IP related to a new product line was based on technology that it had acquired from Misfit Inc. in 2015. “It’s based on something out of our timeline, it’s new to the market technology and we think it’s a product that has features and benefits that aren’t in the category today,” McKelvey said.

Misfit was a maker of smartwatches who’s last release, the Shine 2, ran proprietary software. Fossil, by comparison, uses Google’s Wear OS to power its smartwatches.

Stacey Burr, vice president of product management of Wear OS at Google, then said that “we saw some technology that they were developing that we thought could be brought out in a more expansive way if Google had that technology, and was not only able to continue to use it with Fossil but bring it to other partners in the ecosystem. It’s about bringing great features to the widest numbers of on-the-go consumers.”

Whatever the technology is, the game for Google is to bring to market, either directly or through partners, smartwatches that compete with Apple Watch, the market leader.

As of the third quarter of 2018, Apple Inc. held 45 percent of the market of an estimated market of 10 million smartwatches sold. By comparison, the leading maker of Google Wear OS smartwatches, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. sat in third place with an 11 percent share.

Image: Fossil