Apple just won a bid where they put up $2.6B of a $4.5B offer under the pseudonym firm name Rockstar Bidco, for Nortel's 6000+ patents. After losing to Rockstar Bidco that included Google's top mobile rivals (RIM, Microsoft and Apple) Google's made another stalking horse bid: InterDigital. Bloomberg infers that Apple may be chasing a bid to cut Google out of a patent portfolio to protect Android.
WTH?
First off, it's incredulous that the DOJ hasn't voiced any concerns over what seems to me to be an obvious collusion between Google's main wireless competitors to exclude Google from gaining equal footing with them.
But second, if the DOJ is giving tacit approval behind the scenes for Apple to go after InterDigital's 18,000+ patents, this is outrageous. We're going to need an independent ethics investigation over this complicity to harm Google's ability to compete in the market place by Microsoft's and Apple's litigious attacks.
Not only is the patent system broken, but so is our own Department of Justice.
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