Google Acquires 222 More IBM Patents 73
itwbennett writes "The newly acquired patents include email management, server backup, tuning and recovery, e-commerce, advertising, mobile web page display, instant messaging, online calendaring, and database tuning. Google hasn't said why they wanted the patents, but it's a good bet they had fighting lawsuits in mind."
Why not license them instead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why did IBM sell the patents instead of licensing them to Google? Wouldn't it be better for IBM to hold the patents to license them to other folks, or have them in their patent defense arsenal?
Someone please enlighten me.
Re:Why not license them instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) Google probably paid more to have exclusive rights to the patents. There's no point in having a patent that a potential defendant can go to IBM to license, thereby circumventing your lawsuit.
(2) IBM has so many patents that they are essentially lawsuit-proof. Selling these rights to Google instead of licensing them doesn't lower IBM's ability to defend itself against a patent lawsuit.
Re:'tis sad... (Score:5, Interesting)
...to remember the unbridled software-building activity and creativity of 10 to 12 years ago. Now, patent-fighting dominates it all. 'tis sad....
That's not true. I for one and a whole lot of other (open source) developers just ignore all this kerfuffle and go on with our unbridled software-building activities. Everything and it's grandmother is patented nowadays, I guess just by touching the mouse and clicking a button in my own software I violate at least 20 patents plus 20 more because it's "on the internet". Add 40 to this if it's also "on a mobile device". Pffh.