Despite planning to sell off Motorola, Google will be retaining "majority of the 17,000 Motorola Mobility patents" from its 2011 acquisition. ("Google to sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo in $2.9bn deal") The vast amount of patents involved in the deal highlights the importance of patents in the ongoing war and why technology companies are so interested in acquisition of start-ups.
Mergers and acquisitions used to be the talk some many years back, when banks and multi-national companies did M&A to expand. This allowed them to enter into new markets - other countries, and also other industries.
Nowadays the topic is all about the digital world. Coming from Singapore, I have long heard about youths creating start-ups in the US, hoping to the bought over by Google (I always hear about Google, so I am not too sure about the rest). I never really thought about it, but I guess there is a link between start-ups and patents, leading to their acquisition. Sure, they are all smart people with smart ideas, but why would Google want to acquire so many. One possibility is that they get to grow their pool of innovative people, and allow for a place for cross communication between different groups which might lead to grander, better ideas. And Google gets to own the patents under their name. It would be easier then to implement more things without as much fear of infringement.
Unfortunately for the phone segment, there has already been so many competitors in it, right from the time of boring candy bar cell phones by Nokia. Apple may have come up with the revolutionary iPhone, but many companies might have owned some patents which they may have unknowingly "copied", and more so the later contender Google with Android. So where am I going with this? Nowhere much, just that the talk of the town will change someday. Although the bulk of patents is currently in smartphones, there are loads of patents elsewhere too. The focus might shift to other segments of the digital world where they might be another revolutionary product (hint: driver-less cars, integrated transport systems, etc?) if they do pick up the pace. This century will definitely be an exciting one.
Mergers and acquisitions used to be the talk some many years back, when banks and multi-national companies did M&A to expand. This allowed them to enter into new markets - other countries, and also other industries.
Nowadays the topic is all about the digital world. Coming from Singapore, I have long heard about youths creating start-ups in the US, hoping to the bought over by Google (I always hear about Google, so I am not too sure about the rest). I never really thought about it, but I guess there is a link between start-ups and patents, leading to their acquisition. Sure, they are all smart people with smart ideas, but why would Google want to acquire so many. One possibility is that they get to grow their pool of innovative people, and allow for a place for cross communication between different groups which might lead to grander, better ideas. And Google gets to own the patents under their name. It would be easier then to implement more things without as much fear of infringement.
Unfortunately for the phone segment, there has already been so many competitors in it, right from the time of boring candy bar cell phones by Nokia. Apple may have come up with the revolutionary iPhone, but many companies might have owned some patents which they may have unknowingly "copied", and more so the later contender Google with Android. So where am I going with this? Nowhere much, just that the talk of the town will change someday. Although the bulk of patents is currently in smartphones, there are loads of patents elsewhere too. The focus might shift to other segments of the digital world where they might be another revolutionary product (hint: driver-less cars, integrated transport systems, etc?) if they do pick up the pace. This century will definitely be an exciting one.
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