Hacker News Reader

Frank Shaw of Microsoft revealed that Google was invited to jointly bid Nortel’s Patent Portfolio but declined.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/03/microsoft-just-kicked-googl... http://technologizer.com/2011/08/04/google-shows-how-not-to-...

Take everything with at least a boulder of salt before turning to an emotional being.

View on HN

That is microsoft's story, however if I recall correctly, if google were to have bid with the others, the deal was structured such that they couldn't protect android partners. So the lawsuits against android would happen anyway with the difference being google sponsoring the patent trolling against its own android OEMs.

But yeah, "invited".

By invitation, was it "Join us in suing others, or we'll sue you?"

indeed. Sounds more like extorted than invited at first glance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com