Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“We’re going to patent it all.” - Steve Jobs
In 2011 Google announced purchasing Motorola’s struggling mobile division, Motorola Mobility Google completed the purchase in 2012 and laid off about 4,000 people from Motorola Mobility. Google has now let another 1,200 employees go, in essence cutting another 10% more of the Motorola Mobility workforce.
A Google spokeswoman said that the “cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer. It’s obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition”. The lay offs will affect employees in the U.S. China and India, though there will be no shutting down of Indian facilities at the current time, as reported in various places on the Internet. A Motorola Mobility spokesperson told India Times that, “Motorola Mobility is not closing down its India operations. Although we are not currently introducing new products there, we retain significant operations in India”.
Google had more than just the making of products in mind when purchasing Motorola Mobility though, so the lay-offs are nothing Google is probably concerned about from a business perspective. In August of 2011, Google’s Larry Page said in a blog post that, “Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”
The purchase of Motorola Mobility’s patents by Google hasn’t deterred Apple from throwing patent infringement cases on Google though. Apple is attempting (again) to sue Motorola Mobility for a supposed violation of Apple’s patent for touchscreen displays. An Apple attorney said that the patent was for “a key invention and it drove the iPhone phenomenon and later the iPad.”
This seems to be another prime example of Apple using unethical tactics to suppress products made by others because Motorola Mobility already had already gotten the International Trade Commission‘s backing (prior to this re-filing of the case by Apple) that one of the patents that Apple had brought infringement cases against Motorola Mobility was “invalid” and the other patent had no evidence of being infringed upon. In fact, International Trade Commission attorney, Megan Valentine, stood up if favor of the ruling and added that even prior to Apple obtaining that patent, Sony held a SmartSkin patent for similar touch screen technology and that the two were “nearly identical.” Yet still we have here Apple attempting to re-file the case against Google.
Although the following graph represents 2011 patent statistics, compare the number of patents Apple has to other companies (many of which they seem to love to sue).
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The following excerpt was taken from one of our other articles here in the Daily Flux:
“In 2006, Apple was getting the first iPhone together, while, at the same time, a company called Creative Technology was suing Apple for iPod patent infringements. Apple lost the case and had to pay $100M in the judgment. Steve Jobs was furious and went on a warpath. Calling his senior people together, he told them (regarding the iPhone), “We’re going to patent it all.” From that time on, Apple began patenting everything they could, even “rounded corner icons.”
Apple has even had patents revoked though. How many more patents should they truly -not- own?
No one truly knows the answer to that question. What we do know though is that just as they have patent cases against all around the world against Samsung (the company that holds an enormous amount of patents and Apple’s toughest competition), so too Google is no exception in their battle against Apple and their use of supposed patent holdings in attempts to destroy their competition.