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Comment by Joakal | Hacker News Reader

"Bid with us or it's a shame that you didn't join the club.."

Or am I misunderstanding this article?

Google is saying Microsoft et al bought the Novell patents to keep Google from having access to them. Google is trying to imply that this is so the patents can be used against Google.

Microsoft is pointing out that Google was offered a chance to be part of the buying group. That would have given Google access to them and precluded them being used against Google. This makes it very likely that the buying group was in fact buying the patents for defensive purposes, rather than to go after Google.

Not really. It's smooth PR by Microsoft which is apparently working, but the reality is Google is looking for these patents to create cross-licensing deals to protect themselves from current and future patent suits from companies like Microsoft and Apple - cross-licensing deals that Google could not do if they co-owned these patents with said companies.

That's not necessarily the case.

Google could have tried to do a deal to bid and be able to indemnify anyone it wanted. Microsoft might or might not have been open to bidding on those terms, but it seems Google didn't even try.

Weird indemnity clauses are fairly common in patent deals. For example, Microsoft was already indemnified against the Nortel patents, and yet bid anyway.

From what I can tell the Novell patents were not a prime motivator to light Google's ire (these are the patents Microsoft says Google did not want to purchase with them). I see no evidence or statement from Microsoft saying they offered to team up with Google (and Apple, and RIM, and various other companies) in the purchase of the Nortel patents.

From Google's blog post:

They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple

These are the patents Microsoft is referring to.

Yes, the Nortel patents are possibly more dangerous and the prime motivation for their blog post, but Google called out Microsoft on this set of Novel patents, and one cannot blame them for responding.

A sage once said "You can't always get what you want."

If Google refused to pony up 4.5+B and refused to share with Microsoft/Apple etc. Then it do not get those patents. That's far from the conspiracy theory its recent blog post is painting.

You're talking about a different set of patents than the ones Microsoft is tweeting about.

Google is talking about both, and google refused to even TALK to microsoft about joining one of the groups bidding on patents that google is now complaining about.

The claim that this is MSFT PR spin is based on the presumption that MSFT offered google bad terms, but the email makes it clear they were proposing talking about joining the group-- there were no terms yet.

Plus its pretty much impossible for there to have been bad terms. This is why competitors like Apple and RIMM can join the same group. If google wasn't going to get what they want out of the deal there would be no incentive to contribute.

Joining a group and paying a fraction of the bid is always cheaper than bidding against that same group and having to pay the whole bid.

The only reason you wouldn't want to join such a group is if you wanted to use the patents offensively.

There absolutely can be bad terms, from Google's point of view (and not from the point of view of Apple and RIM). For example, restrictions on who or how you can sub-license your rights to the patents to third parties...

So the solution is to decline the offer and be subject to MORE licensing fees and/or law suits? Surely they would be in a better position if they were part of the buying group?

I do not disagree with your assessment - I will say it seems like Google is more upset about the Nortel patents and the group of companies that bought them than the Novell patents Microsoft is tweeting about.

your translation reads similar to mine.

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