In recent years the biggest patent battles have been between Apple and Samsung. The battle started shortly after Android started making headway in the market. Apple (and their fans) allege that Samsung copied Apple’s iPhone in their Smartphone designs. The facts tend to indicate otherwise, but many simply have bought into the Apple PR machine’s claims that they invented the technology. Apple also likes to try and claim that Google developed Android after Apple started developing iOS. Again pesky facts get in the way as Android was already in existence before iOS, Google simply bought them.

However, it appears that it is not just Apple that is envious of Google’s place in the market. Last year a group of companies that include Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Blackberry, and many others made a $4.5billion dollar bid to buy bankrupt Nortel Networks’ patent portfolio. They put these patents into a massive holding company they called Rockstar. Google also bid on the portfolio, but their bid of $4.4 Billion was not enough to win the prize.

Now Rockstar has come after Google for a handful of patents they claim Google, Samsung and other phone manufacturers that are not part of the group. They have launched a lawsuit claiming willful infringement of these patents. As with all things the timing of the suit is important. Right now Google’s Android has 81% market share in terms of OS.  Samsung is the number one manufacturer with Apple second. On the other hand Microsoft, Sony, Blackberry and Ericson all have a fraction of this space. It is not surprising that these companies have banded together to try and hobble Google.

To give you an idea of the logic behind this suit there is one part in the complaint that spell it out quite clearly:

“Google was aware of the patents-in-suit at the time of the auction.
Google placed an initial bid of $900,000,000 for the patents-in-suit and the rest of the Nortel portfolio. Google subsequently increased its bid multiple times, ultimately bidding as high as $4.4 billion. That price was insufficient to win the auction, as a group led by the current shareholders of Rockstar purchased the portfolio for $4.5 billion.
Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe the patents-in-suit.”

Using this logic it would seem that Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Blackberry and Ericcson could also have been infringing and that is why they chose to buy the portfolio. It could also be argued that they purchased it with the intent to file litigation and compete in the courtroom instead of in the market place.

Although patent suits against manufacturers that use Android is nothing new, the direct attack on Google is. Rockstar is trying to use a patent that hits Google where it hurts, Advertising. They allege that Google is willfully infringing on patent number 6,098,065 which has the title Associative search engine. On the surface it looks pretty strong, but there are some holes in it as well. In the list of references we found some interesting items that might work in Google’s favor when this comes to trial. Or course Rockstar files the suit in Texas which has a history of siding with the patent holder. For the phone makers the new dream team has bundled together a group of patents that cover VPN and even one that tries to patent a way of putting components together: “Electronic package with an electronic component mounted upon a PCB or ceramic substrate by first level interconnects and housing second level interconnects on the other side of the PCB.” This is patent number 5,838,551.

Overall the complaint has some very broken logic in it, but that has never stopped a lawsuit from being pushed through in the past so we doubt it will stop it this time. No, the next steps will be an attempt to invalidate the patents being used, which might actually work considering the age of some of them and the obviousness of the “technology” covered.

For now we can all sit back and listen to both sides wage war in the press and the fan boys (again for both sides) flam each other on Facebook, forums and in the comments section of the articles that are sure to pop up. The sad part is that neither side will realize that the only people that will lose here are the consumers while the lawyers are the only real winners.

Google Complaint

Samsung Complaint

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