http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_patent_aggregation
It's not just to stop from being sued over that particular patent, but to be able to use that patent to counter-sue when litigated for other patents.
Google has yet to use any of its patents offensively.
Microsoft’s objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks.
Where did they argue that it was for offensive reasons?
And since when a weapon directed at someone who's attacking you is offensive?
Because Google didn't make that argument, no matter how terribly M G Sielger may misinterpret it.
"They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them;"
That's what Google actually said. Google partly owning them in concert with Apple and Microsoft does nothing given that Apple and Microsoft are the primary antagonists of Android.
I haven't been following this closely, but isn't this phrase contradicted by having been invited to be in the band of Rockstars?
Google tried to give the impression that they were blocked from getting the patents at all. Now they reveal their true motivation, which wasn't a simple "get them", but rather a more nuanced "we wanted to get them, and also have them not get them, so that we could use them against them". I think this is a perfectly valid reason Google gives, but its not what they were trying to evoke in their first blog post. They were trying to tug at heart strings at first -- this update is just kind of like, "Oh, big companies doing what big companies do -- again."
Google doesn't just want to counter all Microsoft's future patents that they will buy, because that still doesn't change anything. They want to counter Microsoft's old patents, the ones they are using right now.
Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Here's the problem: Even if Google won the Novell bid, they would not be able to use the patents as a defense against MS. MS is licensing the patents from Novell, and I think that if any other party bought the patent pool, they would continue to license them from whomever bought the pool. So Google couldn't use them in a defensive manner. They could make life annoying for MS by increasing the fees, but that's about it, especially because if they increased the fees too high, they'd doing the exact same thing that MS is.
Plus, I think that the DoJ's decision to put the patents under GPLv2 and the OIN patent license would have been made regardless of who actually bought the pool, considering that a lot of the patents apply to Linux. So even if Google had won, it's not clear if it would have actually helped them in the end.
The DoJ ruling merely means they can't really leverage those patents against Google to stifle them more, which I'm sure the legal departments of Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle would have loved to do. It means those patents are less of a threat, but it wasn't a win for Google either.
I don't agree that the DoJ would have made the same decision in the case that Google had exclusively won the patents. I think the litigious nature of Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft, especially towards Android, had quite a bit to do with that decision.
I feel like Google is pulling the same thing they pulled with the FCC's 700Mhz Spectrum auction: Highlighting the faults of the system, advocating for consumers, getting some help from the government and trying to get their way without actually paying for it.
No. The DoJ ruling means that they can't leverage the patents against Linux. The OIN patent license only applies to Linux code. That doesn't necessarily apply to the Android UI, for example.
That's the primary reason that I think the DoJ would have made the same ruling. It gives the Linux code the same protections that they had with Novell.