Google Inc, fresh from losing a bid to buy thousands of patents from bankrupt Nortel, lashed out at its biggest rivals on Wednesday and accused them of banding together to block the Internet giant in the red-hot smartphone arena.
In a rare public outburst, Google chief legal officer David Drummond blasted Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, Oracle Corp and “other companies” for colluding to hamper the increasingly popular Android mobile operating system by buying up patents, effectively imposing a “tax” on Android mobile phones.
Apart from increasing costs for consumers, snapping up the patents would stifle technological innovation, he said.
“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,” Drummond wrote in a blog post.
He referred to “a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.”
Apple, Microsoft and Oracle declined to comment.
Google — which is facing a federal antitrust probe in the Internet search market it dominates — is forging ahead in the smartphone market, but it has been hampered by a lack of intellectual property in wireless telephony, which has exposed it to patent-infringement lawsuits from rivals such as Oracle.
It lost out on the Nortel patents to a consortium grouping Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion and others, which together paid US$4.5 billion.
Google individually had bid up to US$3.4 billion for those patents, before teaming up with Intel Corp, which on its own had bid up to US$3.1 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter.
They bid through US$4 billion and then tapped out, another source said.
The Android software, now used by phone makers including HTC Corp (宏達電), Motorola Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, has rapidly overtaken Nokia Oyj to become the world’s most popular smartphone platform, with about a third of the market.
Drummond said the company was looking to strengthen its patent portfolio. Google, whose crown jewel is its search algorithm, has never placed the same priority on patents as it has on copyright, but it is now hoping to stock up. It recently bought more than 1,000 patents from IBM Corp.
The Internet search leader is now in talks to buy InterDigital, a key holder of wireless patents valued at more than US$3 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That shift in mentality comes as a wave of patent suits crisscross the wireless industry. In past years, incumbents have tried to protect their position against newcomers such as Google, which entered the market three years ago with Android.
HTC received a setback last month when a US trade panel said it had infringed on two of Apple’s patents.
Also, Samsung has delayed the Australian launch of its latest Galaxy tablet because of a patent dispute with Apple, which says the South Korean electronics giant “slavishly” copied the iPhone and iPad.
Oracle is suing Google, claiming Android infringed on Java patents that it inherited through an acquisition of Sun Microsystems last year.
Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father’s panicked voice: The brakes do not work. Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into a sport utility vehicle and a sedan, and crashing into a large concrete barrier. Stunned, Zhang gazed at the deflating airbag in front of her. She could never have imagined what was to come: Tesla Inc sued her for defamation for complaining publicly about the vehicles brakes — and won. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay more than US$23,000 in
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on Taiwan’s semiconductor exports to the US to encourage chip manufacturers to move their production facilities to the US, but experts are questioning his strategy, warning it could harm industries on both sides. “I’m very confused and surprised that the Trump administration would try and do this,” Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst and founder of TECHnalysis Research in California, said in an interview with the Central News Agency on Wednesday. “It seems to reflect the fact that they don’t understand how the semiconductor industry really works,” O’Donnell said. Economic sanctions would
‘NO DISRUPTION’: A US trade association said that it was ready to work with the US administration to streamline the program’s requirements and achieve shared goals The White House is seeking to renegotiate US CHIPS and Science Act awards and has signaled delays to some upcoming semiconductor disbursements, two sources familiar with the matter told reporters. The people, along with a third source, said that the new US administration is reviewing the projects awarded under the 2022 law, meant to boost US domestic semiconductor output with US$39 billion in subsidies. Washington plans to renegotiate some of the deals after assessing and changing current requirements, the sources said. The extent of the possible changes and how they would affect agreements already finalized was not immediately clear. It was not known