Google Could Face FTC Lawsuit Over Smartphone Patent Shenanigans
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is considering a lawsuit against Google for violating antitrust law in its legal tussling with Microsoft and Apple, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Google has been trying to block U.S. imports of smartphones from Apple and Microsoft on the ground that they violate the patents Google now owns by virtue of its acquisition of Motorola Mobility. According to the Bloomberg report, the Microsoft and Apple products in question use industry standard technologies which fall outside the purview of patents.
Now, $12.5 billion is a lot of scratch, and everyone knew Google would end up wielding these smartphone patents at some point, but the FTC takes a dim view of this sort of thing and may decide to make an example of the search giant.
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