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Google Sues Consortium Backed By Apple and Microsoft to Protect Android
A couple months ago, Rockstar, a patent-holding consortium backed by Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Blackberry, and others launched a barrage of infringement suits against Google and the makers of Android devices. Google has now launched a counteroffensive, seeking protection from Rockstar's patent trolling. The complaint (PDF) says, "Rockstar produces no products and practices no patents. Instead, Rockstar employs a staff of engineers in Ontario, Canada, who examine other companies’ successful products to find anything that Rockstar might use to demand and extract licenses to its patents under threat of litigation." Google's filing also accuses Rockstar of interfering with their business practices by contacting other companies and trying to convince them not to use Android. It asks for a declarative judgment of non-infringement.
They didn't have anti-patent troll legislation that was passed recently. Let's see how that law works in Google's favor.
The company that bought the patents was formed just to buy the patents. The theory was that Google bought the patents because they knew they'd be used against them. Check Google's record on patent use, To my knowledge, they haven't used them aggressively, although Motorola had suits in progress before they bought them. The really nasty part about Rockstar is that they promised they wouldn't use the patents for this purpose, and then did.
People appear to be conflating two different consortiums that purchased two different patent portfolios.
Rockstar bought the Nortel patent portfolio. CPTN Holdings bought the Novell patent portfolio. Google was invited to join CPTN, not Rockstar.
Confirmed by Google here.
Google open-source the technologies they develop to build their products on, not the products themselves.