Vying with the new Evil Empire

I don't normally post about business or technology, but the news that Google is buying Motorola Mobility, (i.e. their Smartphone business) is huge. And it isn't because the two companies are such an obvious technical fit although I thing they probably are. Rather it is this statement buried in the article "Motorola, which introduced its first cell phone nearly 30 years ago, has more than 17,000 patents with another 7,500 still awaiting approval". This must be the real reason for the purchase. It is astonishing that a purchase of this scale is undertaken so as to give a company more leverage in courtroom patent battles. Surely now is the time for serious patent law reform.