Apple Led Rockstar Group Get Sued By Google
Bangalore: The renowned search engine Google filed a complaint against Apple led patent group Rockstar for threatening the Android dais, particularly the Nexus range products, reports TOI.
Business partners of Rockstar constitute Blackberry and Microsoft which are considered as strong competitors to Google's free operating system. And as per Google, Rockstar’s patent campaign is targeting several Silicon Valley companies like Samsung, Asus, LG, HTC and so on. The internet titan thus by filing a suit tries to protect several Android makers from potential court cases.
In 2012 Rockstar acquired a large portion of the now-defunct Canadian technology company Nortel's patents for $4.5 billion in which Apple’s contribution was $2.5 billion. "Rockstar produces no products and practices no patents. Instead, Rockstar employs a staff of engineers in Ontario, Canada, who examine other companies' successful products to find anything that Rockstar might use to demand and extract licenses to its patents under threat of litigation”, says Google’s court filing.
Smartphone features like Mobile hotspot functionality, messaging and notifications comprise Nortel's patents. After purchasing these patents, Rockstar didn’t license them and thus there is a probability of losing $4.5 billion it has paid. There is a speculation that this Google’s plea to the court will get dismissed similar to the Cisco's appeal to stop courts from allowing companies to sue its customer for infringing patented router technology.
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