Patent smackdown: Apple teams up with Microsoft to bid against Google and Android OEMs for Kodak’s patents

The patent arms race is reaching a feeding-frenzy stage. Over the past months, we’ve witnessed a series of high profile legal spats between the technology companies that make our beloved gadgets. A quick recap of the most visible battles includes the Oracle vs Google trial, the Samsung vs Apple global conflagration, the Microsoft vs Motorola case that caused the ban of all Motorola devices in Germany, and the Apple vs HTC debacle, which affected the availability of the One X and the EVO 4G LTE in the USA.
Tech corporations are suing each other like madmen, but unfortunately, their actions mostly affect consumers. We get fewer products on the market, and the products that are available are made dumber. The war is likely to continue for the foreseeable future and the players are accruing weapons at a staggering rate.
A new stash of patents is about to be sold to the highest bidder. On Monday, the patent portfolio of Eastman Kodak, the legendary photography company, will be sold in an auction. Two major forces emerge as potential winners – on one side, Apple allied with Microsoft and patent troll aggregation firm Intellectual Ventures. On the other side, Google got together with the biggest Android OEMs – Samsung, HTC, and LG – along with a patent troll of its own, the RPX Corporation.
The two consortiums will try to win the battle over Eastman Kodak’s 1100 patents, most related to photographic technology. Kodak has a great deal of intellectual property that could prove essential for anyone manufacturing a product that incorporates a digital camera. According to WSJ, alliances are still made and broken, and the situation is still in flux.
As a reminder, it wouldn’t be the first time Google would square off with the Apple-Microsoft team – last year, Google lost the auction for Nortel’s patent trove, which eventually went to the Apple-Microsoft consortium for $4.5 billion. It’s unclear how valuable Kodak’s portfolio is, but experts seem to agree that it is far less valuable than Nortel’s stash.
We’ll keep you posted on any new developments next week.

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Want to know how much Motorola’s patents are worth? It’s $5.5 billion

When the news broke about Google’s intention to acquire Motorola Mobility last year, the move was put down mainly as a way for Google to access Moto’s extensive list of patents. However, the industry was left to wonder how much out of the $12.4 billion deal can be attributed to said patents.
Hopes of finding out details of the deal were squashed when the acquisition was finalized on May 2012, but no information was shared with the rest of the world. A recent regulatory filling made by Google now sheds some light on the dollar value of Motorola’s patents.
It turns out that barely half of the money spent to acquire Motorola went to its patents. To be more specific, Google paid $5.5 billion to Moto for its “patents and developed technology”, which Google hopes will help shield the company and Android from patent infringement litigation, and probably allow it to start its own if provoked. We doubt Google would be actively pursuing this option, but sometimes you got to fight fire with fire.
As for how the rest of the purchase price, the money was distributed like thise: $2.9 billion was for cash acquired, $2.6 billion for goodwill, $730 million for customer relationships, and $670 million for other net assets acquired.
Patents-aside, it’s too early to tell whether the acquisition will greatly benefit either sides. During Google’s Q2 earnings call, which was delivered last week, we found out that Motorola has made a worthy contribution to Google’s bottom line. The maker of the RAZR series contributed $1.25 billion in revenue to its parent company. The search giant’s Q2 revenue topped $12.2 billion.
With Google reportedly showing an increasing interest in the hardware business, it is likely we will see the company getting more involved in Moto’s hardware development activity, but that won’t  happen soon. Google CFO Patrick Pichette said that, while people can expect things to change at Motorola, Google has no announcements to make regarding what strategic moves have been planned for Moto.
It looks like Motorola will be left to its own device for now.

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