The consortium that owns thousands of patents from the Nortel bankruptcy has filed suits against Google and several other large companies claiming patent infringement according to The Verge on Nov. 1.
The consortium, called Rockstar, is owned by Microsoft, Sony, Blackberry, Ericson and Apple. The companies that have allegedly infringed include Google as well as Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung and ZTE.
As ArsTechnica reports that once the group of competitors purchased the patents, it was pretty well known that Google would be a future target. And now it is. The main attack is against Google and its Android operating system. So while Google is being sued for search advertising business, partners of Google are being sued for making hardware to run Android. So, Asus, which built the Nexus 7 for Google, is being sued for their part.
The Department of Justice approved the sale of Nortel's patents to the consortium almost two years ago. Six thousand patents became the property of the consortium when they paid $4.5 billion in an auction. And as you might guess, that means there’s plenty of room to find patent infringement somewhere.
Google, HTC and LG are being sued for infringing seven patents dealing with user interfaces, notifications and messaging. Ars Technica reports this case was filed in a district of Texas that is friendly to patent plaintiffs.
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