In 2009, the Canada based company Nortel went bankrupt and therefore sold more than 6000 patents covering wireless innovations and technologies in 2011. Google and a group of other interested parties were trying to get the patents. In the end, “Rockstar Bidco”, consisting of Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry, Ericcson and Sony got the patents with a bid of $ 4.5 billion.

Just recently, “Rockstar” filed eight lawsuits against Google and a host of other companies, claiming the infringement of several patents. The lawsuits are attacking AdWords, which is Google’s main advertisement product, and Android. The lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court, Eastern Texas Division four weeks ago. For many people, this patent attack was not a big surprise. Patent suits are used as weapons to control the market. The relevant patents the fight is about are all titled “associative search engine” and describe “an advertisement machine which provides advertisements to a user searching for desired information within a data network.” Google is accused of having used these technologies on purpose.

Best regards
und viele Grüße aus Charlotte
Reinhard von Hennigs
www.bridgehouse.law