Shortly after Google's top lawyer called out Microsoft and Apple for ganging up on his company by combining to outbid Google in the recent Nortel patent auction, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith fired back. http://www.androidcentral.com/editorial-keep-it-courtroom-folks

Smith claims that Google was invited to join the consortium which was actually put together to allow the members to defend themselves against smaller patent trolls. Now I'm no lawyer but having watched the software patent train wreck since the mid 1990s, I've got a few ideas (which may well be completely off-base) about Google's thinking here.

From Google's perspective their real patent problem revolves around Android and efforts by Microsoft, Apple and Oracle to derail its momentum with patent claims. While small patent trolls are a real problem, they are not Google's priority right now. Google's reason for buying the Nortel patents would be as a defensive maneuver against its large rivals.

If Google had opted to join the consortium, it's a good bet that the deal would have included some provision that those patents could not be used in either an offensive or defensive way against the other members of the group. That means that they would've been no use to Google in its current legal proceedings. For Google to use these patents defensively they would probably need to have sole ownership.

That's probably why Google has turned its attention and money toward acquiring other available patents. In the long run, this may yet come back to bite Google if the consortium opts to attack based on the Nortel patents as well but this may be less of an issue since those are apparently mostly related to hardware, a segment in which Google doesn't really participate.

Reshared post from +Jerry Hildenbrand

Yes, Apple and Microsoft are still evil. Glad to see someone at Google come right out and say it.

Embedded Link

Google's chief legal officer calls patent war 'a hostile, organized campaign against Android' | Android Central
Google We've heard the cries. "Why isn't Google fighting back on the patent front?!?!" Trust us, there are people in suits working on this every day.

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