Over the weekend, the Wall Street journal has reported that Google has completed a purchase of a number of communications-related tech patents from Chinese electronics producer Foxconn for an undisclosed sum.
The patents were originally owned by the Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. more informally known as Foxconn, are best known for assembling Apple’s iPhone and Sony’s PlayStation game consoles. The company has been developing new technologies, and has amassed a quite sizable patent portfolio over the years, with Foxconn advising they have applied for 128,400 patents world-wide with more than 64,300 of those applications granted.
Of course this new deal just adds to the patents Google has grown over the last few years through various acquisitions, such as those acquired with the purchase of Motorola Mobility. This adds to the recent cross-licensing patent agreements which Google has entered into recently with Cisco and Samsung.
Google has also been facing challenges, although mainly indirectly through partners Samsung, Motorola and to a lesser extent HTC through various court cases in the US. This latest patent acquisition is most likely to help bolster Google’s patent library in the hopes of preventing any future legal challenges to Google’s continually increasing range of products and services.
We shall wait to see if these patents have really helped Google defend Android against possible court cases as well as seeing what the company might develop with these patents in future devices or software updates.
Can’t we all just get along?
With what the Rotten Fruit Co is still persisting in doing, I don’t think so, Scott.
So the only sane thing for your company to do is to acquire a suitable array of globally applicable patents in your own possession to slap upon the Rotten Fruit Co. in immediate retaliation for any legal threats or processes they might try.