Google’s ever growing mobile division just got a lot stronger. The Department of Justice recently approved Google’s purchase of Motorola’s mobile division, giving Google control of the company and its 17K patents. This $12 billion purchase was likely driven by Google’s need to protect itself against patent lawsuits.
Google’s CEO Larry Page has expressed his concern over the “patent wars” in a recent blog post: “The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to ‘protect competition and innovation in the open source software community’ and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction,” Page writes. “Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”
Page also referenced Motorola as “betting big” on the Android phone in 2008 when it was committed to using the Android operating system on all its phones. Clearly this shows some savvy for a mobile manufacturer that’s dominance in the mobile industry has dwindled over the past decade.
While there certainly was a defensive element to this deal, from a legal standpoint, Google obviously has a lot to gain from it as well. There’s the potential to make considerable money off of these patents through licensing deals.
According to Google, smart phone usage has increased by 7% over the past year in the U.S. This number will continue to grow, especially as the cost of smart phones decrease, and Google will be waiting for these news users, strategizing on how to keep iPhones and BlackBerrys out of their hands.
; return false' class='button' title='Print page'><img src='http://cache-02.cleanprint.net/media/pfviewer/images/CleanPrintBtn_white.png){kind=link}
; return false' class='button' title='PDF page'><img src='http://cache-02.cleanprint.net/media/pfviewer/images/PdfBtn_white.png){kind=link}
; return false' class='button' title='Email page'><img src='http://cache-02.cleanprint.net/media/pfviewer/images/EmailBtn_white.png){kind=link}
About The Author: Tom Sullivan is the senior account executive at Turbo Social Media. He has managed accounts for a wide variety of businesses, from small “Mom and Pop” businesses to multi-million dollar corporations. His success in business stems from his entrepreneurial drive and his desire to do “whatever it takes” for his clients to be successful.
Tom received his BA in Business Management Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is a former collegiate rugby player and he enjoys playing softball, golfing, camping, and snowboarding in his spare time. 
Related posts: