Google has acquired more than 1,000
patents from IBM in a move to bolster its patent portfolio as the search giant
girds for battle over Android.
As first reported by the SEO by the Sea blog, on July 11 and 12, Google
recorded the assignment of 1,029 granted patents from IBM covering a range of
topics, including relational databases, object-oriented programming and
business processes. The patents also cover such things as “the fabrication and
architecture of memory and microprocessing chips, to other areas of computer
architecture including servers and routers as well,” said Bill Slawski, author
of the SEO by the Sea blog.
"Like many tech companies, at times
we'll acquire patents that are relevant to our business," a Google
spokesman said in a statement.
Slawski listed several patents Google
acquired that are related to search and search engines, including:
In a July 29 post, Slawski lists all of the 1,029 patents Google
acquired from IBM.
“Google acquired a number of additional
patents from IBM earlier this year and last year as well,” Slawski wrote in
that post. “I included those in my February post, Google Patents, Updated and Google Self Driving Cars Get Jumpstart from IBM Patents.”
And in a July 31 post, Slawski wrote
about other patents Google has acquired recently.
“Some other recent patent acquisitions
by Google include patents from Exbiblio, from Widevine, the phone patents from Myriad Group, more phone related patents from Verizon, and a number of memory chip related
patents from Metaram, amongst others,” Slawski said.
However, Slawski also discovered
Google’s acquisition of two patents from Successes.com for “a system and method
for story creation workflow management” and “system and method for content
development management,” according to the abstracts for the patents.
“The patents show a richly detailed
online process for building case studies, corporate biographies, and other
content,” Slawski said.
Slawski noted that the two patents
acquired from Successes.com are less likely to be used to help protect Google
from patent litigation or to help it develop new technologies.
Overall, the acquisition of new patents
will help Google fend off potential lawsuits, as the company increases the
number of patents that cover technologies in its possession.
Technology patent watcher Florian
Mueller, author of the FOSS Patents blog, said one possible early use for the
patents Google acquired from IBM could be to negotiate some kind of
cross-patent deal with Oracle that could hasten a settlement to the lawsuit
Oracle has leveled against Google over the use of Java in Google’s Android
mobile operating system.
In a July 29 post, Mueller said:
“In the near term, one of the most
obvious ways to put them to use would be to pick some that may read on
important Oracle products and propose to Oracle a cross-license that would
resolve the Android IP dispute on more favorable terms than Google could
negotiate without such leverage. Many of the transferred patents cover fields
of technology that are key to Oracle, though this doesn't automatically mean
that Oracle infringes any valid ones of them.”
And although he could not say to what
degree exactly, the new patents from IBM definitely make Google stronger. Said
Mueller:
“This is difficult to assess from the
outside, but my feeling is that this deal can help Google to defend itself
against other patent holders if it's sued directly. It can serve to deter some
companies from suing Google directly. But it's hard to imagine that this deal
puts Google into such an incredibly powerful position that it can give an
intellectual property guarantee (including indemnification) to its device
makers.”
There is irony in Google acquiring
patents from IBM, in that Forbes recently published its list of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies.” Google is
No. 7 on that list, and IBM does not even make the list of 100 companies. Yet,
when it comes time to beef up its patent portfolio, Google turns to the
Forbes-proclaimed non-innovative IBM. Obviously, Big Blue was not considered
innovative enough for Forbes, but apparently IBM is plenty innovative to
Google.
In January, IBM announced that its
inventors received a record 5,896 U.S. patents in 2010, marking the 18th
consecutive year it has topped the list of the world’s most inventive
companies. IBM became the first company to be granted as many as 5,000 U.S.
patents in a single year.
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