#24: More Google Setbacks

As we have read about in many previous blog posts from students in our class, Google has not gained much if any actual leverage from its $12.5 billion spent on acquiring Motorola’s patents as they are constantly unsuccessful in proving patent infringement by other companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Nokia. Google was wrong to think that owning many patents would enable the settlement of any infringement issues no matter what the scale. So it is clear that this has not worked, however, licensing has been successful.

In Mannheim, Germany, Google lost again when the regional court announced that Motorola is not entitled to an injunction against Microsoft over its push notification patent because “Google owes Microsoft a license under an AciveSync license agreement.” This result is not that surprising considering Judge Richard Arnold and Wales High Court of Justice declared the suit invalid for multiple reasons. In addition, Google was about to loose its right to that particular patent anyway because the patent was going to expire in two years. Considering the costs and time involved in most patent litigation this law suit doesn’t even seem logical for Google to waist its time an money on especially if many Justices also argue the suit to be invalid!

“Google cannot currently enforce, and isn't going to be able to enforce anytime soon, an injunction against Microsoft. But Microsoft has already won a U.S. import ban and three German injunctions against Motorola's Android-based devices (1, 2, 3), and is likely to win a fourth one, relating to Google Maps, on June 3. In November Google's lawyers told an appeals court that their client lost four months of German sales as a result of Microsoft's patent enforcement (and, which they didn't say, Google's unwillingness to join the likes of Samsung, HTC, LG and Acer in taking a royalty-bearing Android patent license).”

What we can see here is that licensing is supported and for good cause. Licensing is key to open innovation.