Anti-Trust Officials May Come to Google's Help in Apple and Microsoft Led Patent Deal

Google received a major blow when it got more than 6,000 mobile-related patents snatched from under its nose by a group led by its biggest rivals in the space, Apple and Microsoft, which outbid it.

Both of these companies already have huge patent troves, while Google has only a few hundreds and is increasingly under pressure, with its Android partners being sued by both Microsoft and Apple.

It seems that Google may get a second chance as the move has raised some anti-trust concerns.

Because the group that ended up winning the bidding war is made up of virtually all the big players in the smartphone game, Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony and others, there is concern that they are abusing their position to squeeze out a competitor, in this case Google, which now has the biggest slice of the smartphone pie in the US.

According to eWeek, the American Antitrust Institute sent the US Department of Justice a letter arguing that the companies have colluded to take Google out of the competition.

The organization goes further and says that the group should not be allowed to buy the Nortel patents and that the fact that they had to band together is suspicious.

In the later rounds of bidding, Google teamed up with Intel while virtually everyone else that had been involved in the bid backed Apple's Rockstar Bidco.

"Three close competitors' shared control over 6,000 patents surely at a minimum creates significant risk of spillover collusion, tacit or otherwise," the AAI noted in its letter [PDF].

"Why, in this light, should ANY horizontal collaboration among them (joined by three others with strong portfolios of their own as well) be allowed with regard to the Nortel portfolio, particularly in the absence of any transparent safeguards against anticompetitive effects from it?" it continued.

Anti-trust officials are said to be looking into the matter. While any deal this large is going to get some scrutiny, the particulars of this deal make it more likely, though clearly not a given, that the authorities will get involved and possibly block it.