Google Inc has bought about 1,000 pending and issued patents from IBM Corp in its quest to shore up its defenses against suits by other technology companies, according to documents filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Google and IBM spokesmen wouldn’t comment on Friday on the purchase. The patent transfers were recorded two weeks ago and cover a range of technologies, many of which have little to do with Google’s Internet search and advertising business. One covers ways of automatically adjusting a clock, another deals with surface treatments for electrical contacts.
However, even patents that have little do with Google’s business can be useful ammunition in the hyper-litigious technology world. If it’s sued over patents by a company whose business relies on technologies covered by Google’s patents, Google can file a retaliatory lawsuit.
Phone makers that use Google Inc’s Android software are being sued by Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp. As a young company, Google has few patents of its own to counter with.
Google’s general counsel Kent Walker wrote in a blog post in April that the explosion in patent litigation threatened to stifle innovation: “But as things stand today, one of a company’s best defenses against this kind of litigation is [ironically] to have a formidable patent portfolio, as this helps maintain your freedom to develop new products and services,” Walker wrote.
Earlier this month, Google participated in an auction for a collection of 6,000 patents from Nortel, a bankrupt Canadian maker of telecommunications equipment. It was outbid by a consortium including Apple that paid US$4.5 billion.
In the past year, Google has also bought patents from Verizon Communications Inc and Motorola Inc. The patent sale was first reported by the blog SEO by the Sea, which follows Google.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day