Besides drawing from Google Patents, the finder displays results from Google Scholar, Google Books and the web's other nooks and crannies.
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Microsoft, still demanding its pound of flesh, has extracted license fees from a number of these companies, claiming infringement by Google on basic patents it owns.
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Microsoft is incensed that Google is giving away Android, claiming that Google has not cleared Microsoft patents utilized by Android and is unable to indemnify Google customers against intellectual property suits, presumably to be brought by Microsoft.
Google bought more than 1, 000 patents from IBM to bolster its defense of Android from smartphone lawsuits, according to Bloomberg, which cites Google spokesman Jim Prosser as confirming the transfer of 1, 023 patents from IBM on Aug. 17.
Google has revealed its intention to acquire Motorola Mobility in what looks to be a strategic exchange of patents (for Google) and needed funding (for Motorola).
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For, along with the company and the patents, Google has also bought a series of tax losses.
The agency increasingly turned its attention to other issues, including whether Google misused certain key patents it acquired when it bought handset maker Motorola Mobility.
In what would appear to be the first step towards complying with the order to license its standards-essential patents, Google has dropped some of its claims against Microsoft.
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In addition to the one over licensing fees and a case in Germany involving standard essential patents, Google has maintained legal action against Microsoft in the ITC over a patent relating to a wireless peer-to-peer network, which is not a standard essential patent.
It also gives Google lots of other nifty patents for other nifty technological gadgetry and services.
Meanwhile, RIM may try to outbid Google for the wireless technology patents held by Nortel, Bloomberg reports.
As we saw in the Google-MMI deal, patents are worth whatever some party is willing to pay for them.
And, it should be said, keeping these patents away from Google is also a key motivator for Apple.
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This is a company that in September filed patent suits against Apple and Google alleging infringement of 10 patents each.
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For example, when I ran the numbers earlier this year, Microsoft had been granted more than 19, 000 patents, while Google had been granted fewer than 1100.
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Yesterday, BT sued Google Android for violating its patents.
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Bloomberg adds that a group of technology companies including mobile-phone makers and potentially RIM, may also bid on the patents to stop Google from gaining more influence and royalties for the wireless industry.
Interestingly on the same day that news broke that Google has pledged not to sue any open source users or developers using its patents, unless of course they sue Google.
But Google certainly won't include patents in a potential sale, which makes a sale a lot less appealing.
The deal gave Google more than 17, 000 patents to help protect its smartphone franchise against lawsuits from Apple.
Moreover, our decision included a complaint against Google for misconduct involving standard essential patents it acquired from Motorola Mobility.
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Patent consultant Florian Mueller said this was the first clear case of Google suing another company over its patents.
He also praised the FTC's settlement with Google limiting the way it enforces patents and said it was "more or less" the kind of solution he was seeking in similar cases.
The investigation also dealt with patents, and Leibowitz noted during the news conference that this settlement with Google would help combat the growing industry practice of hoarding patents purely for defensive purposes.
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The deal gives Google a trove of 17, 000 patents, plus 7, 500 still pending.
The irony is that Google itself has been assiduous in acquiring patents recently, notably through its takeover of Motorola Mobility.
No, Google bought a great deal more than patents when it acquired Motorola, though there are doubtless some real gems in the portfolio.
Perhaps Google wanted to acquire Motorola's patents so quickly that there was no time to look for a buyer of the company's hardware business.
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Google had previously acquired a slew of patents when it bought Motorola Mobility, a company that had been filing lawsuits against competitors using these standards.
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"This is a significant milestone in Google's efforts to establish VP8 as a widely-deployed web video format, " said Allen Lo, Google's deputy general counsel for patents.
ENGADGET: Google and MPEG LA settle up, free VP8 video codec for the world wide web
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