Both the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the European Commission have approved Google Inc.’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. after intense scrutiny of how Google’s acquisition of Motorola’s intellectual property would give its Android operating system leverage in the wireless market.
The DOJ said the licensing of vital “standard essential” patents like those among the 17,000 patents Motorola controls, will continue to be scrutinized, particularly in the smartphone and computer tablet markets.
The DOJ also closed its investigations of the purchase of certain Nortel Networks Corp. patents by Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Research in Motion Ltd., and Apple’s acquisition of certain Novell Inc. patents, concluding that all three transactions are unlikely to substantially lessen competition.
The European Commission, according to EC vice president Joaquin Almunia, “approved the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google because, upon careful examination, this transaction does not itself raise competition issues.” “[T]he commission will continue to keep a close eye on the behavior of all market players in the sector, particularly the increasingly strategic use of patents,” Almunia said.
The EC believes that Google’s acquisition of the Motorola’s to wireless telecommunications standards-related patents, such as 3G and 4G/Long Term Evolution, would not (1) impede competitors’ access to the SEPs, (2) give Google the ability to exploit the patents to unfairly draw customers to its search and advertising services, or (3) prevent Motorola’s competitors from using Android in their own wireless devices. “Android helps to drive the spread of Google’s other services,” the EC said. “Consequently, given that Google’s core business model is to push its online and mobile services and software to the widest possible audience, it is unlikely that Google would restrict the use of Android solely to Motorola.”