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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

WRT the patents, it depends on the details of the sale, and how/why Google valued them. Speculation was that one reason Google bought Motorola was to keep someone else from getting the patents and being able to use the patents against Google. If that was responsible for a large portion of the valuation, that might still be retained in a sale to Lenovo, depending on how precisely the sale is structured. It's fairly common in patent sales to include terms protecting the seller, so Lenovo would likely not be able to turn around and sue Google with the just-purchased patents. If so, Google would still retain the portion of the patents' value relating to them not being in the hands of someone who can sue Google using them.

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From Google's official announcement[1], undersigned by Larry Page:

"Google will retain the vast majority of Motorola’s patents, which we will continue to use to defend the entire Android ecosystem. "

[1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/lenovo-to-acquire-mot...

Most of the patents have been pretty worthless so far. They are mostly standards essential patents that need to be licensed on FRAND terms and in the last 3 years they've had zero enforceable injunctions in their favor.

Relevant: https://twitter.com/reckless/status/428653694998298624

We don't know what patents google is retaining, so it's unclear whether they're FRAND or truly valuable.

Also, I've followed Nilay's post on several of these patent issues; he's either wrong or he sensationalizes to fit his narrative. I don't think he's very credible, even with a J.D.

We know the quality of the patents from what they've attempted to assert in courts in jurisdictions all over the world. They've not been successful anywhere.

Unless you want to make the leap that they've been holding back all their valuable IP from their patent assertions for some unknown reason, I think it's a pretty safe conclusion.

The extremely limited patent actions were pre-Google, and were largely contrived as negotiating tools. Trying to draw anything from that is foolhardy.

Why wouldn't they have used their strongest applicable patents? They may have more similar ones and maybe one or two will hold up but do you really think if they had some powerful non-FRAND ones they wouldn't have used them on Apple or Mircrosoft by now?

We didn't use nukes in Vietnam. The value of the Motorola's patents may be in keeping Apple and Microsoft from using their strongest patents.

I don't understand what the point of that would be. Patents only have a limited life and the stronger stronger and broader they are the more they strengthen you negotiating position. Of course there is uncertainty so you don't going in which will survive sufficiently but you don't deliberately pick anything but the best.

I just don't see the scenario were you can't do a licensing deal with your opponent but you agree to use you second rank patents in the lawsuit.

> Most of the patents have been pretty worthless so far. They are mostly standards essential patents that need to be licensed on FRAND terms

Standards-essential patents that have to be licensed on FRAND terms are "worthless" only in the sense that an ongoing income stream is worthless.

The income stream is tiny or nonexistent. Microsoft recently challenged Moto's demands and ended up paying a royalty for every XBox. The royalty is so small that Google will end up having lost money on the litigation. And reasonable reading of the patents involved show that the royalty was grossly inflated. One of the patents was literally a patent on a number.

The purpose of patents in the smartphone wars is to force your competitors to deliver second rate phones or collect billions in damages. That's what Microsoft and Apple are doing to Android manufacturers. If Google can't retaliate, the patents are worthless in this context.

FRAND patents will never block Microsoft and Apple from using common, obvious functionality on their phones. Therefore they're worthless.

Microsoft have ignored standards and instead patented obvious necessary functionality and user interface elements and mathematical operations. Since prior art and obviousness are a dead letter at the Patent Office and the courts, these are the patents that are useful and valuable.

Essential technology patents based on research and development are worthless. Bounce-to-refresh, search boxes that actually search, long filenames, and other trivial or long known elements that can be forced past exhausted patent examiners are worth everything.

I'd say you hit the nail right on the head, but I find myself imagining this statement more like a compressed air nail gun shooting the nail so far into the wood that it splits; resulting in the entire house falling down.

I'd be shocked if Google doesn't get full access to use all the patents covered in the deal( assuming the reports are right and the patents are going to Lenovo), but even with that in mind a big part of the value of holding lots of patents in some technology area is (unfortunately) that you can use them as a nuclear option against someone who is suing you for some other patent to allow for MAD-style defense. IANAL but I'm not sure how they could structure a deal that gives away the patents but keeps that defensive option available.

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