This is the opening statement by Florian Mueller on his latest report of a Microsoft victory over Motorola in a German lawsuit:
>The Munich I Regional Court today ordered a German patent injunction against wholly-owned Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility because the Android operating system infringes EP1304891 on “communicating multi-part messages between cellular devices using a standardized interface”.
Emphasis is mine. I emphasize that part because this is a PR problem that Google now has to deal with. Prior to acquiring Motorola Mobility, Google was only defending itself against the, non-consumer facing, Oracle ((To the best of my knowledge.)). Now though, every lawsuit against Motorola Mobility is essentially a lawsuit against Google — because Google owns Motorola Mobility.
That may not be an immediate problem, but the more lawsuits that Motorola Mobility loses, the darker Google’s black eye gets.
Take for example Mueller’s closing paragraph in this same post:
>Most Android devices sold in the United States already have an Android (and Chrome) patent license from Microsoft. Major device makers like Samsung, HTC and LG have opted for legal certainty, and every ruling that Motorola loses against Microsoft validates their decisions to prefer licensing over litigation.
With Motorola Mobility now owned by Google, could they even license a patent without significant repercussions? Think about it, because in my eyes, Motorola Mobility licensing a patent, from anyone, is admitting that Google itself needs to also license that patent for Android as a whole. Oops.