Google’s IBM Patent “Trove”: Not So Trovacious?

We’ve talked about the patents Google bought from IBM, but we’ve been guessing at to the value and usefulness of those patents. An analysis by IPVision, which makes patent-analyzing software, suggests that the patents won’t be much of a sword or a shield in the IP cold war against Apple and Microsoft regarding its Android OS. The key to defensive value in patents is bundling groups of patents together to cover as many facets of a device as possible. With the rise in mobile computing litigation, patent poor companies like Google have been increasingly desperate to assert themselves. IPVision doesn’t think that the IBM patents will help much – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other uses for that IP. Could it be that maybe, just maybe, Google wants to innovate and needed some IP rights to achieve its goal?

All that IP litigation has not been without results. Apple has blocked sale of Samsung devices in much of Europe, and Microsoft has won millions in licensing fees (including from Samsung), just to use Google’s quote unquote free Android OS.

Google’s patent portfolio is growing, but is still leagues behind bluebloods like Microsoft or Apple. Google certainly has the money to ramp up R & D, which I don’t even need to google to find out, but developing technology and protecting takes time, and a degree of luck.

According to Technologyreview.com:

At first glance, the patents Google bought from IBM look good. The U.S. patent office maintains a set of subject categories used to sort patents, and most of those acquired from IBM spread across the “700 series,” where new software ideas and techniques are to be found.

Google’s prior patent portfolio is still mostly related its breach and butter business: database and information retrieval techniques. Buying the IBM patents was supposed to extend Google’s reach, but probably even more so to protect it from lawsuits. The IBM patents, according to Hoo-Min Toong, cofounder of IPVision, seem to be “one-off patents” that mostly aren’t related to one another, and are therefore much less valuable. Instead of a wall, Google may have bought bricks without mortar. Toong says that many of Apple and Microsoft’s patents built off of the IBM patents, but that it would take a lot of doing for Google to assert that they infringed on its IBM trove.

As I discussed last week, there are other options in the mobile computing patent world. Google could look to buy patents from declining companies like Nokia or RIM, but the key remains looking to what’s next. Google may be on the defensive now, but in ten years, they could be a has been like Yahoo, if they don’t innovate and adapt.