Analysis: Google/Motorola Could Be Peak of Patent Price Spike
(Reuters) - The bubble in mobile phone technology patent values may just have popped. Now that Google Inc. has agreed to a $12.5 billion deal to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. -- scooping up a trove of 17,000 phone-related patents to give itself some ground to defend its Android operating system -- the most motivated buyer looks to be off the market. "The game is completely changed as a result of Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility. The arms race is essentially over," said John Amster, chief executive of RPX, a company that advises customers on patent purchases. "They have basically created through acquisition what they needed." Google's move was widely seen as a response to its loss in the auction of 6,000 Nortel patents to a group led by Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc. and Research in Motion, which fetched an unprecedented ...
