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Google auctions off Motorola battery patents
When Google bought Motorola back in 2012, many believed that its intentions in doing so were primarily to increase its number of mobile patent holdings. At the time, Google was recovering from copyright infringement accusations from Oracle, and the owners of Android wanted to ensure that their mobile operating system was safe from as much further liability as they could protect it from.
Now, however, Android has established a very firm foothold in the mobile industry, and Google has begun auctioning off patents it’s no longer interested in holding. The move seems to be tied to the ongoing search for better batteries. With technologies like self-driving electric cars and robots in the workplace looming, Google isn’t alone in its search for more efficient, longer lasting batteries. Apple, BlackBerry, IBM, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Tesla are all looking for better battery solutions to carry us through the rest of the decade.
When Google sold Motorola to Lenovo in 2014, which is an issue that continues to make headlines, the Alphabet subsidiary kept the majority of the patents it had acquired in its purchase of Motorola, in spite of the $2.1 billion price tag Google slapped on the mobile company. It seems Google has realized that, while Motorola-owned battery patents will continue to be valuable in the near future, better solutions will be needed if larger projects are to be realized.
What do you think about Google’s decision to sell off Motorola patents? What does this imply about the intentions of the world’s most game-changing company? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!