Google Lawyer Slams Apple, Microsoft over Patents

WASHINGTON, KOMPAS.com - Google’s top lawyer accused Apple, Oracle, Microsoft and other companies on Wednesday of using “bogus patents” to wage a campaign against the Internet giant’s Android mobile platform.

In a blog post, Google senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond said Google’s rivals were seeking to “make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices.” “Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation,” Drummond said.

He said 550,000 Android devices were being activated every day and its success has resulted in a “hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.”

Drummond pointed to last year’s $450 million acquisition of 882 patents from software maker Novell by a consortium made up Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle and the more recent purchase by a group led by Apple and Microsoft of 6,000 patents held by bankrupt Canadian firm Nortel.

Google was a bidder for the Nortel patent portfolio but it lost out to a $4.5 billion bid from the consortium made up of iPhone maker Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Blackberry maker Research in Motion and Japan’s Sony.

The huge sum spent on the patents and the involvement of many of the world’s top tech companies reflected the fierce battle for intellectual property in the tech industry, where firms are often hit with patent-infringement lawsuits.

Google is currently being sued by software giant Oracle over technology used in its Android smartphone operating system. Drummond said Google’s rivals were “banding together” and were seeking a $15 licensing fee for every Android device.

He said they were also “attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android,” which Google provides for free to handset makers.

“Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it,” Drummond said.

“A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a ’tax’ for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers.