Media Coverage
Source: Bloomberg TV
Media Coverage
Press Contacts: Erik Cummins, Matt Hyams, Olivia Thomas
08.16.11
Jack S. Barufka, firmwide leader of Pillsbury's Intellectual Property practice, joined the hosts of Bloomberg TV's InsideTrack to discuss how Google's stated intent to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. could affect an escalating patent arms race between competing smartphone developers. On August 15, Google said it will pay $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility, purchasing more than 17,000 patents it can use to defend against allegations of infringement, according to the company, as competition accelerates in the $206.6 billion mobile-phone market.
"When we see there's a relatively new entrant into a large marketplace and they don't have the patents to support their market position, well, they're vulnerable, and they really haven't spent the R&D dollars, they haven't invested in the patent portfolio," said Barufka. "So competitors are going to take advantage of you at that point, and this [acquisition] is a way for Google to try to at least ‘play in the game'."
"In the phone wars, this certainly ups the ante," he added. "I think you can see it could be either a real bloodbath, where these companies go at each other head-to-head for years and years, or at some point, they may see - well, it's only a matter of ‘mutually assured destruction,' so why don't we settle this in a peaceful way … it's a matter of really digging into the actual patent portfolios, see what they actually cover, see what they're worth ... you have to make strategic decisions on a case-by-case basis."