Google Objects to Hostile Organized Campaign Against Android; Accusing Microsoft, Apple, and Others

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Google Objects to Hostile Organized Campaign Against Android; Accusing Microsoft, Apple, and Others

By CircleID Reporter
August 04, 2011, 6:39 pm PDT Views: 8,140 Add Comment

Google has accused Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies for waging an organized campaign against Android through “bogus patents”. Google’s Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, in a blog post yesterday wrote:

“I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on. Here is what’s happening:

Android is on fire. More than 550,000 Android devices are activated every day, through a network of 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers. Android and other platforms are competing hard against each other, and that’s yielding cool new devices and amazing mobile apps for consumers.

But Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.

They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Phone 7; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.”

Microsoft’s top public relations executive, Frank X. Shaw, in response has refuted claims laid out by Google. Shaw has released an October email from Google general counsel Kent Walker to his counterpart at Microsoft, Brad Smith, declining Microsoft’s offer to jointly bid on patents from Novell.

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By CircleID Reporter — CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.
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