Back in 2011, Apple teamed up with Ericsson, Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Sony to form a consortium to bid on a collection of 6,000 patents and patent applications from Nortel, a communications company that went bankrupt in 2009.

The team of companies, called the "Rockstar consortium" paid a total of $4.5 billion for the patents following a bidding war with Google and said at the time that the consortium would implement plans to "pursue licensing agreements with companies that are harnessing its intellectual property."

nortel_logo
Today, Reuters is reporting that the consortium filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas against Google, Samsung, HTC, Huawei, and others for infringement on those patents. Google has been accused of infringing on seven of the patents. "Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe," the lawsuit reads.

The patents, US 6,098,065, 7,236,969, 7,469,245, 7,672,970, 7,895,178, 7,895,183 and 7,933,883, appear to be related to generating search results, serving advertisements based on search results, and creating user profiles.

This invention relates to an advertisement machine which provides advertisements to a user searching for desired information within a data network. The machine receives, from a user, a search request including a search argument corresponding to the desired information and searches, based upon the received search argument, a first database having data network related information to generate search results.

Rockstar is seeking damages from Google, and claims that Google's patent infringement is willful.

Top Rated Comments

macrumors12345 Avatar
150 months ago
No big surprise

You don't pay billions for patents if you don't plan to use them. The parties must not have been able to find an agreeable settlement.

Ironically, GOOG was offered the chance to be part of the "Rockstar Consortium", but declined to do so because it would have prevented them from offensively using the patents against AAPL, MSFT, and BB[R]Y. They literally have no one to blame but themselves here.

Edit: Technically they were invited to join MSFT and AAPL in the Novell patent consortium. We don't know for sure whether or not they were invited to join the Nortel patent consortium (though it seems very unlikely they would join given they had just turned down the Novell invitation); we only know that they put in their own multi-billion dollar bid to gain the Nortel patents as an offensive weapon.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AgentElliot007 Avatar
150 months ago
Thom Yorke's tweet from a couple days ago speaks to how I feel about Google on a fundamental level:

"@thomyorke I am proudly Luddite if to be so is to criticise the power and destruction of Google etc.. J Lanier again> pic.twitter.com/fTLwb0aHef"



https://twitter.com/thomyorke/status/394938316723720192



And as many have said, Google had the chance to play nice with everyone else, but they didn't. I have absolutely no problem with them learning a lesson from it. This lawsuit isn't about the patents. This is about taking a stand against a company that far too often profits off of the work of others while also aiding others to do the same. This is about calling a company out for, well, frankly, for being incessantly full of ****. It's simple as that, I have no doubts. If all they wanted to do was go after Google, they wouldn't have invited them in to begin with.

Google continues to become more and more flagrantly "evil" in their day to day business as more years pass (most notably in terms of poorly defined privacy terms, the use of user's private data, and the blatant abuse of other people's IP), and they failed to make any effort whatsoever to take the high road for the good of everyone in a situation like the Nortel patents presented.

Google deserves this, and I hope the consortium wins. Not for the sake of patent laws, but to send another message that Google's destructive strategies won't be tolerated.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
duffman9000 Avatar
150 months ago
You don't pay billions for patents if you don't plan to use them. The parties must not have been able to find an agreeable settlement.

Ironically, GOOG was offered the chance to be part of the "Rockstar Consortium", but declined to do so because it would have prevented them from offensively using the patents against AAPL, MSFT, and BBY. They literally have no one to blame but themselves here.

Instead of placing funny bids maybe Google should have let the adults do the negotiations.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CindyRed Avatar
150 months ago
Who wrote this?

Talk about way off. Try, ``...from Nortel Networks, a former Network Communications Giant ...

FWIW: Please read up on history before writing such cover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel_Networks

You don't go from an energy company born from Bell Canada to a giant Networking Conglomerate that acquired Bay Area Networks to end up being characterized as ``a communications company....'' like a slow drip faucet with such a valuable IP Portfolio.

"Company" is fine. It's ambiguous and passive. Calling a company a "giant" insinuates it's too large to fail, which obviously wasn't the case. As big as it once was, it was nothing more than a blip near the end of its existence.

Much the same as Blackberry, an enormous player in telecom technologies worth 30b - 45b to a company barely treading water worth less than 5b.

Sure, maybe calling Nortel a "former telecom giant" may have been more suitable, but faulting a blogger for calling a mole hill a mole hill when you remember it as a mountain is silly.

Besides, it was just a corporation that was poorly managed, not a tragic national hero.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Sy7ygy Avatar
150 months ago
This is Microsoft, Apple, and Blackberry looking to stop Google's freeware OS from completely taking over. Cheap hardware, a decent user experience, and the occasional popular phone can drive a lot of people out of business using a combination approach and cooperation with companies looking to make next to no margins. The only winner, apart from Samsung to some degree, is Google.

No, this is a group of people trying to stop an advertising, monopolistic giant.

Google is _NOT_ a good company; they have made all of their money on selling Metadata about personal people to other corporations & supporting ultra-corrupt firms such as Samsung.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mallwitt Avatar
150 months ago
Patents need a use it or lose it to the public domain time limit. Produce a product and put it on the market, license it to someone who does, or lose it when you can't make a go of it. This entire thing is becoming insane, and is undermining the idea that Patents exist to protect an invention from being infringed on to incentive development and production and are increasingly being used as instruments to suppress development and extort concessions from rivals that can't be accomplished via competition within the marketplace.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 13 New Features

Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iPhone 17 Air Pastel Feature

iPhone 17 Air Launching Later This Year With These 16 New Features

Thursday April 24, 2025 8:24 am PDT by
While the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" is not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the ultra-thin device. Overall, the iPhone 17 Air sounds like a mixed bag. While the device is expected to have an impressively thin and light design, rumors indicate it will have some compromises compared to iPhone 17 Pro models, including only a single rear camera, a...
apple watch ultra yellow

What's Next for the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch SE 3

Friday April 25, 2025 2:44 pm PDT by
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch, which launched on April 24, 2015. Yesterday, we recapped features rumored for the Apple Watch Series 11, but since 2015, the Apple Watch has also branched out into the Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch SE, so we thought we'd take a look at what's next for those product lines, too. 2025 Apple Watch Ultra 3 Apple didn't update the...
iphone 17 dummies sonny dickson

iPhone 17 Air Almost as Thin as Its Buttons, New Images Show

Thursday April 24, 2025 2:14 am PDT by
If you missed the video showing dummy models of Apple's all-new super thin iPhone 17 Air that's expected later this year, Sonny Dickson this morning shared some further images of the device in close alignment with the other dummy models in the iPhone 17 lineup, indicating just how thin it is likely to be in comparison. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5mm thick – with a thicker ...
AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Friday April 18, 2025 5:16 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
ipad air magic keyboard feature

iPadOS 19 Rumored to Show Mac-Like Menu Bar When Connected to Magic Keyboard

Thursday April 24, 2025 12:09 pm PDT by
When an iPad running iPadOS 19 is connected to a Magic Keyboard, a macOS-like menu bar will appear on the screen, according to the leaker Majin Bu. This change would further blur the lines between the iPad and the Mac. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously claimed that iPadOS 19 will be "more like macOS," with unspecified improvements to productivity, multitasking, and app window management,...
top stories 2025 04 26

Top Stories: iPhone 17 Air Rumors, Apple Watch Turns 10, and More

Saturday April 26, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
We've known for quite some time about Apple's plans for a thinner "iPhone 17 Air" coming later this year, but wow, the latest dummy models give us our best look yet at just how thin this phone is going to be. Other Apple news and rumors this week included another iOS 18.5 beta, the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch launch, and more management reshuffling in Apple's Siri division, so read...
Global Close Your Rings Day Pin

Apple Stores Giving Away a Limited-Edition Pin For Free Today

Thursday April 24, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Starting today, April 24, Apple Stores around the world are giving away a special pin for free to customers who request one, while supplies last. Photo Credit: Filip Chudzinski The enamel pin's design is inspired by the Global Close Your Rings Day award in the Activity app, which Apple Watch users can receive by closing all three Activity rings today. The limited-edition pin is the physical...