4 ms·
When Palm was up for sale I did wonder why Google didn't value it very highly just to acquire their patent portfolio.
by buro9 16y ago
When Palm was up for sale I did wonder why Google didn't value it very highly just to acquire their patent portfolio.
- pedanticfreak 16y agoI agree in general that Palm was grossly undervalued. But I also think the author is overvaluing patents. Microsoft, who supposedly dwarfs Google and Apple in patents, still struggles to profit from those ideas. And IBM, whose patent portfolio dwarfs them all, also has a smaller market cap than Apple, Google, or Microsoft. Google might not have a quantity of patents, but it seems to have enough quality patents to sit quite comfortably.
- andybak 16y agoI wondered the same thing at the time. Google needs to start tackling the patent system head-on. They dabbled a little bit in the Bilski case but I think it would be a more valuable use of their energy than the ill-considered h264 battle. I wonder how much assistance the $100 million they spent on On2 could have provided to the patent reform movement?