Motorola Confident in Patent Strength, Could Be Google’s Biggest Ally
Google and its manufacturing partners have been taking heat in the courts lately, facing patent litigation from the likes of Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft. While HTC and Samsung remain embattled, one company isn’t scared of potential lawsuits. It’s quite the opposite, actually, for Motorola. CEO Sanjay Jha did a bit of chest puffing at the mobile manufacturer’s recent Q2 earnings call, pointing to Moto’s deep patent portfolio focused on mobile handsets, 2G/3G technologies, and emerging 4G LTE innovations. Jha went so far as to suggest the patents could be used to “enhance shareholder value.”
Jha could be suggesting the company plans to due a bit of legal wrangling of their own, demanding licensing fees from others taking advantage of Motorola’s proprietary technologies. Perhaps he could be inferring the sale of some of Motorola’s patents to Google, a digital conglomerate not averse to buying a little protection (you may recall the recent acquisition of 1,000 patents from IBM). It could also be that Moto plans to sit on the patents, confident that their revenues will not be impacted by potential lawsuits. No matter how it plays out, Motorola is an important ally to Google and the Android OS in the fight over intellectual property. The manufacturer that brought Android from the depths and launched it to mainstream success could be a savior once again.
[via TheStreet]