Google Patent Troll Accusation Against Microsoft and Nokia

On Thursday May 31, Google filed a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft and Nokia saying that the two companies were using Patent Trolls to limit competition. Both Nokia and Microsoft denied the claims by the world’s biggest search engine on Monday, June 4. They two technology giants claimed that they had not colluded with each other and had separate departments that handled intellectual property matters.

Google filed paperwork with the European Commission, US Department of Justice and US Federal Trade Commission which stated that both Microsoft and Nokia had been working together to cause the increase of mobile devices being bought by end users. The California based firms alleged that the two companies were trying to get rid of their commitments by giving the rights of their patents to a third party which in turn then uses those patents to get licensing fees from other manufacturers.

In the case of Google, the amounts could come out to be in the billions of dollars for a number of Nokia and Microsoft patents. The Patent Troll firms receive a percentage of the fees while the rest goes back to the original owners of the patent. Google has pointed at a firm called Mosaid which has under its belt almost 2000 Nokia patents. Google also claims that the firm now has several patents from Microsoft. The search giant is concerned that Mosaid will start taking manufacturers of smartphones using Google’s Android software to court. This could cost the companies a lot of money and in turn drive the prices of phones upward.

The last year has seen several high profile patent and intellectual property battles take place in courts around the world. Nokia recently sued Viewsonic while Google won against Oracle in a much publicized court battle about Java API’s.