Google Wants 2.25 Percent Royalty for Every iPhone Sold

Florian Mueller:

Google’s letter spans over four pages but fails to provide satisfactory answers to those burning questions. With sincere intentions, Google could have put on a page — or a page and a half — everything that other companies in the industry, and consumers using the ubiquitous standards over which Motorola is suing others, need to be reassured about. Look at Apple’s and Microsoft’s concise and crystal clear statements. Why can’t Google provide clarity like that? Because its four pages aren’t meant to improve anything. Google is basically saying that it will do exactly what Motorola is already doing now.

Apple can be a dick about patents. Microsoft can be a dick about patents. But of the three, only Google is a hypocrite about patents — against their use as a competitive weapon only until they have their own to use.

★ Thursday, 9 February 2012