What Google blames Microsoft and Nokia

May 31, 2012, Google filed a complaint with the European Antimonopoly Committee, in which it accused Microsoft and Nokia of intent to engage in "patent trolling." According to analysts, the alliance that produces Lumia smartphones, decided in this way to conduct unfair competition with manufacturers of gadgets on the Android OS in order to increase sales of their own products.

About the background

In 2011, Nokia and Microsoft teamed up to release Lumia smartphones based on the Windows Phone OS. Thus, Nokia planned to improve its clearly shaky position in the mobile device market and entered into fierce competition with gadgets based on the much more popular operating systems iOS and Android.

Soon after the release of the first Lumia line, the new alliance unexpectedly made a deal with the Canadian company Mosaid Technologies, as a result of which the rights to two thousand patents and patent applications previously owned by Nokia and Microsoft were transferred to Mosaid.

The Canadian company itself does not produce any gadgets and so far is not going to produce it - this has caused suspicions of Google.Inc analysts. They suggested that Mosaid is a “troll, ” which, by conspiring with Nokia and Microsoft, intends to declare a “patent war” on Android, and therefore its owner, Google.

About Patent Trolling

Patent trolling is not uncommon in global business. For clarity, we can give a Russian example of the late 90's, when enterprising residents of the Moscow region patented an “invention” called “Glass Vessel, ” which turned out to be a regular bottle. Possessing a patent, cunning "inventors" tried to sue part of the profits from manufacturers of various drinks poured into glass containers.

But still, such a phenomenon is very rare in Russia. But in the United States, such a business is booming. Especially in the field of telecommunications and Hi-Tech, where in the production of the final product more than one dozen or even hundreds of patents are used, which means that it is not difficult to find weaknesses and legal loopholes for filing lawsuits. Indeed, even technologies honestly developed by different people independently of each other often lead to similar results. For example, who do you think invented the radio? Popov or Marconi?

Conflict development

It is worth noting that neither Mosaid Technologies, nor even Nokia or Microsoft took any action against Google as the manufacturer of Android devices. The complaint to the European Antimonopoly Committee was an attempt to protect themselves from possible troubles. According to Google analysts, Mosaid owns about 1, 200 key technologies from the mobile industry that could bring lawsuits. The result of the alleged "patent trolling", according to Google, could be an increase in prices for mobile devices, as well as the introduction of restrictions on the sale of gadgets with Android OS, which would force consumers to buy smartphones with Windows.

However, Google did not take into account that it itself is actually a monopolist. Representatives of Microsoft did not use to notice that Google.Inc controls more than 90% of Internet search and advertising and, in turn, filed a complaint with the antitrust office of the European Union. Now, if Google does not take appropriate measures to resolve the conflict, they can be sanctioned - a fine. Or they will generally limit the use of Google services in Europe.

However, this is another story.

Lenta.ru / Google accused Microsoft and Nokia of aiding “patent trolls”