Success and failures have been a routine for Google and the search engine giant has come back after being unable to acquire the Nortel deal. Google has acquired 1030 granted IBM patents which ranges to cover topics like architecture and fabrication of microprocessing and memory chips and it extends to other areas relating to architecture of computer which includes routers and servers even. This assignment was recorded by Google on the 12th and 13th of July. This deal even has an inclusion of a huge array of business processes along with object oriented programming and relational databases.
Google’s Nortel deal failure might have been haunting them till now but this deal would just be soothing. Nortel deal bid was lost be Google mainly because it wasn’t just against bidders, but a group of bidders who had heavy weights in the group such as EMC, Sony, Ericsson, Microsoft and Apple. The group earned the bid at 4.5 billion USD, whereas had placed their last bid at 3.14159 billion USD. The search engine giant chose an unorthodox move which was on the basis of a few constants and formulas mathematically. The 6,000 patents jackpot was gone and the group had a big margin win over the search engine giant.
Kent Walker, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Google blogged on the Official Google Blog early in April that the company was aiming at creating a formidable patent portfolio which would be of great help in defending themselves. He even discussed about patent reform. He went ahead to say that Google’s decision to get hold of the patents of Nortel had its basis on to create a “disincentive for others to sue Google.”
In an interview for TechCrunch, Kent had displayed his regrets on Google’s part for being unable to get the Nortel deal in their favor. He commented that every time Google buys a company, it is mainly for interesting technologies and people both. For the bid price, he said that 4 billion+ USD bid was neither for people nor for interesting technologies. He continued saying that the bid had taking a route which was “to stop people from innovating.”
The published post even stated Kent’s views further where he said that Google had limited themselves so that they do not overbid in any case. With a positive frame of mind he concluded saying that there would be many more opportunities coming their way and Google was looking at all to those opportunities but to name them, he declined. It has however been rumored that a new patent fight is on the cards which would be between Apple and Google and would be for InterDigital.
This confirmed deal for IBM patents might not be the best start Google could have given to make a patent portfolio, but however it is in no case a bad one. This would give the search engine giant a beginning to grappling a few more deals in its favor. If one links the extension of the deal, intellectual property profile looks catchy and it would force one to think that Google might have some interest in coming up with a few more innovations. For the pricing, the financial details are not yet out for the deal.