The monopoly strategy behind the Google/Microsoft mobile patent wars
What an ignorant blowhard Cory Doctorow is.<p>&quot;<i>This is a great strategy in light of US anittrust [sic] theories over the past 40 years, during which time antitrust regulators promised to leave companies alone as they formed monopolies, provided they didn&#x27;t hike price after attaining monopoly dominance.</i>&quot;<p>No, Cory, that&#x27;s not what happened and there was no &quot;promise.&quot; The new theory of anti-trust was &quot;consumer harm.&quot; Hiking prices is certainly one form of that, but so was forming a monopoly. Microsoft was prosecuted for forming a monopoly and reducing consumer choices.<p>&quot;<i>Google&#x27;s true operating costs aren&#x27;t captured by adding up its salaries and servers – a correct accounting must include the costs of acquiring companies and with them, patents. That&#x27;s the cost Google must incur, if is to retain its power.</i>&quot;<p>No, Cory, those are not &quot;operating costs,&quot; those are called &quot;capital costs.&quot; They&#x27;re treated <i>real</i> differently in Accounting.<p>I was part of this &quot;acquire patents&quot; effort at Google. I actually interviewed people to be in Legal whose job would be to acquire patents. The theory (since discarded) was that a heavy patent portfolio would give you a better negotiating position if you were sued. There was no thought of actually <i>asserting</i> these patents against Microsoft, or anyone.<p>I actually used some of our internal tools to assess our patent portfolio. Most of those Motorola patents were worthless.