Chapter 773 Patent Litigation

After the Devonshire arrived in New York, Barron returned to his manor on Long Island and saw Ivanta waiting there.

The reason why he did not return to London but came directly from Colo to New York was because Ivanta had something important to do...

"Since last month, we have received patent lawsuits from companies including Apple, Microsoft and Oracle..."

After the two hugged and kissed after being apart for a few months, Ivanta couldn't wait to tell Barron in detail...

The trouble this time came from Android, which is owned by IC Capital. As Ivanta said, Android has encountered a series of patent disputes recently, which has caused Ivanta and Android's management a headache.

After all, the Android system can be said to be advancing rapidly around the world, and even in the smartphone market (excluding Nokia's Symbian system), it has surpassed Apple's iOS system and ranked first.

Following them are Apple's iOS system, Microsoft's Windows system and Google's GOS system.

Yes, in Barron's previous life, Google's Android system also encountered similar patent lawsuits, including Apple, Microsoft and Oracle, which filed patent lawsuits against companies in the Android system camp.

It's just that the Android system now belongs to IC Capital, and the GOS system launched by Google has even fallen behind Microsoft's Windows system in terms of user share. Naturally, these companies are targeting Android companies that have a leading market share.

"The reason for our leading market share now is not only the first-mover advantage, but also our free and open authorization. But if we lose these patent lawsuits in the end, we will definitely need to pay patent fees to those companies. With our current number of users, this patent fee is definitely unaffordable for Android companies, and they will inevitably need to charge mobile phone manufacturers, resulting in an increase in the cost of the Android system..."

Just as Ivanta said, some recent media have even had articles asserting that in the future, the Android system may change from the initial free and open to the most expensive smartphone operating system in history.

The reason why these companies have filed lawsuits against Android and mobile phone manufacturers using the Android system is naturally because of the rapid development of the Android system. It can be said that except for Apple and Nokia, other mobile phone manufacturers are more or less launching smartphones based on the Android system.

So Apple and Microsoft naturally can't sit still, they are all competitors of Android in mobile phone operating systems.

Especially for some "emerging brands" that have launched Android phones, such as Honor Electronics, Meizu, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo and other brand mobile phones, they can file lawsuits against these brands in some patents.

Among them, the least threatened is probably Honor Electronics. After all, Barron, who has foresight, has already obtained nearly 20,000 patent licenses from Philips.

However, the problem is that this can only ensure that Honor Electronics will not be affected by these patent lawsuits. After all, Honor Electronics originally obtained patent licenses, not the ownership of these 20,000 patents...

Therefore, at most, it can only ensure that Honor Electronics' launch of Android phones will not be affected, and other mobile phone manufacturers will still be subject to related patent lawsuits.

If we want to crack the current situation, Android itself needs to obtain more mobile phone patent ownership, which can protect the mobile phone manufacturers that launch Android phones from being disturbed by patent lawsuits.

"In the previous patent auction of Canadian Nortel Networks, Apple, Microsoft and other six companies jointly acquired more than 6,000 patents and patent applications of Nortel Networks at a price of 4.5 billion US dollars. We missed this opportunity, which also put Android in a disadvantageous position..."

Ivanta's words made Barron nod.

Barron was a little careless about the Nortel Network incident. In his previous life, this incident happened in 2011, but he did not expect that Nortel Networks, a Canadian telecommunications provider, was affected by something and actually put their patents on the auction table this year.

As a result, the well-prepared corporate consortium consisting of six companies including Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM and Sony directly reached a sales agreement with Nortel Networks at a price of 4.5 billion US dollars in cash.

Among the more than 6,000 patents sold by Nortel Networks this time, 7 of the 105 core patents for 4G communication technology are on par with Qualcomm and Sony.

This is what really upsets Barron. It seems that this transaction obviously bypassed Android, but behind it, it is not that simple.

According to data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple has more than 4,000 patents in the United States; Microsoft has 18,000 patents. Compared with these two companies, Google is at a great disadvantage...

"I heard that Motorola is preparing to split up, so we can try to acquire their mobile phone department, so that we can obtain their patent library and solve the problems that Android is facing now..."

In Barron's previous life, Google also encountered similar problems, and finally resolved these patent lawsuits by acquiring Motorola's mobile phone division.

Now it seems that Android needs to do the same.

Indeed, although it has not been officially announced, Barron and Ivanta have known through many news that Motorola intends to split up, because this is nothing new...

In fact, as early as 2008, Motorola had proposed a split...

Speaking of which, 2008 was the darkest year for Motorola. After experiencing a bleak 2007, Motorola fell into a quagmire in 2008 - at the end of February 2008, its stock price once fell below $10, which was the lowest point of the company's stock price in many years.

According to statistics, Motorola's mobile phone business department lost about $5 billion in the three years from 2006 to 2008. At that time, its mobile phone business had become Motorola's heaviest burden.

Well, it seems that this is still the case. After all, although Motorola has also launched Android phones, they did not focus on this. Instead, they are one of the more active mobile phone manufacturers supporting Google's GOS system.

Reality has proved that their vision is indeed not very good. Now the market share of Google's GOS system is even lower than that of Microsoft's Windows system. So the situation of Motorola's mobile phone business can be imagined...

In Baron's previous life, Motorola will be officially split into two new companies at the beginning of next year - Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions.

After the split, Motorola Mobility (MMI) consists of two major departments of the original Motorola company's mobile terminal and home broadband business.

The other part, Motorola Solutions (MSI), in addition to the two main businesses of public safety solutions represented by TETRA and mobile computing technology based on RFID, will also provide data collection, integrated command and control communications, wireless LAN and other services.

However, it is obvious that given Motorola's current situation, this split must be brought forward. Their shareholders are eager to get rid of the burden of Motorola Mobility as soon as possible!