HTC Gets Patents From Google, Goes After Apple

href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/successful_troll2.jpg">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2375" title="successful_troll2" src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/successful_troll2.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="441" />

We’ve taken a break from covering the eternal patent based machinations of tech companies on EiC, mostly because it’s astonishingly boring as everyone attempts to sue one another back into oblivion. However, this is interesting enough that it’s worth noticing: HTC is suing Apple using patents they just acquired from Google.

href="http://allthingsd.com/20110907/htc-we-paid-for-patents-we-got-from-google/">HTC apparently purchased the patents from Google for an unspecified amount over the past two weeks, and FOSS Patents has href="http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/09/these-are-patents-google-gave-to-htc-to.html">a good rundown of them here.

Here’s what’s interesting: this is analogous to a Cold War situation. Google is arming their allies so that they can wage war with Apple by proxy. Now, HTC may have paid market value for these patents (whatever that amounts to) or Google may have just asked for a token fee, but either way it’s bound to prolong Apple’s stay in court fighting HTC>