After learning that Google and Motorola Mobility Holdings had announced a definitive agreement that will see the former engulf the latter for $40 a share in cash ($12.5 billion) IHS iSuppli analysts decided they would take a look at the potential outcome for the entire industry, and concluded some interesting aspects, one of which involves ongoing litigation between Apple, Microsoft, and Motorola.Closed at a 63% premium over the last closing price before the announcement, “the deal takes place in a litigious period in the handset industry, with companies such as Microsoft and Apple filing procedures on alleged patent infringements from Android licensees (but not Google directly to date),” iSuppli carefully outlines.
Its August 15 market watch report informs that the acquisition is a valuable one that goes beyond the phone maker’s existing portfolio.
With over 17,000 patents issued worldwide and another 7,500 pending approval (whereas Nokia holds only about 10,000), Motorola’s IPs will become a powerful weapon in “the increasingly heated legal context surrounding smartphone intellectual property (IP),” according to iSuppli analysis.
The market intelligence group recalls that on June 30th, a consortium comprised of several handset vendors, including Apple, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM and Sony outbid Google to get their hands on bankrupt Nortel's patent portfolio.
“Such a portfolio (mostly centered around wireless technologies) would have provided Google significant counterweight against current and future IP litigation,” according to iSuppli.
“Instead,” the iSuppli report continues, “it went to a collective comprising two of the most aggressive Android - and to a wider extent Google - competitors, namely Apple and Microsoft.”
iSuppli finally also notes that Google will now have to resolve some ongoing legal disputes between Motorola and the makers of the iPhone:
“The acquisition actually pulls Google into direct ongoing litigation between Motorola and both Apple and Microsoft.”
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