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Google lobs antitrust complaint against Microsoft, Nokia in EU, claims they're playing patent footsie (updated)
The gloves just came off at Google: the company has just filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft and Nokia. Its gripe accuses the two Windows Phone partners of playing dirty pool through handing 1,200 wireless-related patents to Mosaid, a Canadian firm which spends most of its time suing the industry over WiFi rather than making products. Microsoft and Nokia are allegedly hiking the prices of devices by "creating patent trolls" that bypass deals preventing them from suing directly, possibly steering a few companies towards picking Windows Phone instead of Android. Google argues that it's launching the complaint as an early defensive measure. Neither Microsoft nor Nokia has responded, although there's a degree of irony to the action: the complaints assert that Nokia is jeopardizing standards-based patents, but Google's recent acquisition Motorola has itself come under EU scrutiny for possibly abusing standards with its lawsuits against Apple and Microsoft. Either way, it's clear Google is concerned that Microsoft's Android patent licensing campaign might lose its decorum in the near future. Update: Nokia's decided to have its say, in an email to Reuters: "Though we have not yet seen the complaint, Google's suggestion that Nokia and Microsoft are colluding on intellectual property rights is wrong. Both companies have their own IPR portfolios and strategies and operate independently."
Mosaid gets into WiFi patent game, sues 17 companies including Dell, Canon, Asus, and RIM
Whether or not you agree with their tactics, lots of companies are finding it quite lucrative business to spend more time in the courts than in the research labs. CSIRO got some tasty settlements back in 2009, while just a few months ago Wi-LAN received "a significant amount" in a settlement from Intel. Now it's Mosaid's turn, a Kanata, Ontario-based company that bills itself as "one of the world's leading intellectual property (IP) companies, focused on the licensing and development of semiconductor and communications technologies." Indeed it just licensed some of those properties to LG on the 15th, but the very next day it filed suit against a 17 defendants for infringing on six of the company's patents, relating to network discovery, multiplexing, and other wireless techniques. Among those companies is RIM; which has its Torch, Style, Curve, Pearl, Bold, Storm handsets called out; and Asus, which has a long line of motherboards, routers, and other products said to be in jeopardy. As ever it's hard to draw the line between the patent trolls and the legitimately infringed, but that the lawsuit was filed in litigation-friendly Marshall, Texas doesn't leave us with a particularly good feeling.
