The U.S. Department of Justice also approved another pair of key tech industry acquisitions on Monday: the purchase of Nortel and Novell patents by two consortiums of companies, with Apple heavily involved in both.
AppleInsider noted that the US$4.5 billion Nortel acquisition involves over 6,000 patents. A consortium of companies, including Apple, Research in Motion, Microsoft, EMC, Sony, and Ericsson, won an auction over bids by Google and Intel. After the auction closed last year, Google said the results were “disappointing for anyone who believes that open innovation benefits users and promotes creativity and competition.”
The consortium that purchased Novell’s patents went by the name CPTN Holdings and included Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and EMC. They bought 882 patents that Google cited last year in its accusations that Apple and Microsoft had an “organized campaign” against its Android OS.
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In reference to the DOJ approving Apple et.al. acquiring Nortell’s patents Google said
Yet in today’s article about the DOJ approving Google’s acquisition of Motorola (primarily for its patent portfolio to use as a weapon) they said
Google has truly become what they swore they would not.
Well, to be fair, when they say “open innovation” they mean “use your ideas and code without paying you, or even trying to pay you, for it.”
Which isn’t to say that Apple doesn’t do that. There were several OS functions that were lifted wholesale from the ideas of extensions belonging to third parties. I’m not excusing that at all. At least have the decency to buy the people whose business you’re destroying.
I hate to do this Brad, put the plural of “consortium” is “consortia.”
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