Rebirth of England.

Chapter 773 Patent Litigation
After the Devonshire arrived in New York, Barron returned to his estate in Long Island and saw Ivanta waiting there.

The reason why I didn't return to London, but came directly from Kolo to New York, was because Ivanta had something more important to do...

"Since last month, we have received patent lawsuits from companies including Apple, Microsoft and Oracle..."

After the two hugged and kissed after being apart for several months, Ivanta couldn't wait to tell Barron the details...

The trouble this time came from Android, which is owned by IC Capital. Just as Ivanta said, Android has recently encountered a series of patent disputes, which has caused Ivanta and Android's management a lot of headaches.

After all, the Android system is currently making great strides around the world, and even surpassed Apple's iOS system in terms of market share in the smartphone market (excluding Nokia's Symbian system), ranking first.

Following them are Apple's iOS system, Microsoft's Windows system and Google's GOS system.

Yes, in Barron's previous life, Google's Android system was also besieged by similar patent lawsuits. Companies including Apple, Microsoft and Oracle filed patent lawsuits against companies in the Android system camp.

It’s just that the Android system now belongs to IC Capital, and the GOS system launched by Google has even fallen behind Microsoft’s Windows system in terms of user share. Naturally, these companies are targeting Android, which has a leading market share.

"The reason why we have a leading market share now is not only because of our first-mover advantage, but also because of our free and open licensing. However, if we lose these patent lawsuits in the end, we will definitely need to pay patent fees to those companies. With our current number of users, this patent fee is definitely unaffordable for Android, and we will inevitably need to charge mobile phone manufacturers, resulting in an increase in the cost of the Android system..."

Just as Ivanta said, there have even been articles in some recent media that assert that in the future, the Android system may change from its initial free and open nature to the most expensive smartphone operating system in history.

The reason why these companies have filed lawsuits against Android and mobile phone manufacturers using the Android system is naturally because of the rapid development of the Android system. It can be said that except for Apple and Nokia, other mobile phone manufacturers are more or less launching smartphones based on the Android system.

So Apple and Microsoft naturally couldn't sit still, as they are both competitors of Android in mobile phone operating systems.

Especially for some "emerging brands" that have launched Android phones, such as Honor Electronics, Meizu, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo and other brand mobile phones, they can file lawsuits against these brands in terms of some patents.

The one that is least threatened among them is probably Honor Electronics. After all, Barron, who has the foresight, has already obtained nearly 2 patent licenses from Philips.

However, the problem is that this can only ensure that Honor Electronics is not affected by these patent lawsuits. After all, what Honor Electronics obtained was patent authorization, not the ownership of the 20,000 patents...

Therefore, the best that can be guaranteed is that Honor Electronics' launch of Android phones will not be affected. Other mobile phone manufacturers will still be subject to related patent lawsuits.

If we want to break the current situation, Android itself needs to obtain more mobile phone patent ownership, which can protect mobile phone manufacturers that launch Android phones from being harassed by patent lawsuits.

"In the previous patent auction of Canadian Nortel Networks, Apple, Microsoft and six other companies jointly acquired more than 45 patents and patent applications of Nortel Networks at a price of US$6000 billion. We missed this opportunity, which also put Android in a disadvantageous position..."

Ivanta's words made Barron nod his head. Barron was a little careless about the Nortel Networks incident. In his previous life, this incident happened in 2011, but he did not expect that Nortel Networks, a Canadian telecommunications provider, would be affected by something and put their patents on the auction table this year.

As a result, the well-prepared consortium consisting of six companies including Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM and Sony reached a sales agreement directly with Nortel Networks for US$45 billion in cash.

Among the more than 6000 patents sold by Nortel Networks this time, 4 of the 105 core patents for 7G communication technology are owned by Nortel, which is at the same level as Qualcomm and Sony.

This is what makes Barron very unhappy. It seems that this transaction obviously bypasses Android, and the situation behind it is not that simple.

According to data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple has more than 4000 patents in the United States; Microsoft has 1.8 patents. Compared with these two companies, Google is at a great disadvantage...

"I heard that Motorola is planning to split up, so we can try to acquire their mobile phone division. By acquiring their patent library, we can solve the problems that Android is facing now..."

In Barron's previous life, Google also encountered similar problems and eventually resolved these patent lawsuits by acquiring Motorola's mobile phone division.

Now it looks like Android needs to do the same.

Indeed, although there has been no official announcement, Barron and Ivanta have already known through many sources that Motorola intends to split up, because this is nothing new...

In fact, as early as 2008, Motorola had proposed a split...

In fact, 2008 was the darkest year for Motorola. After a dismal 2007, Motorola fell into a quagmire in 2008. At the end of February 2008, its stock price fell below $2, which was the lowest point in the company's stock price in many years.

According to statistics, Motorola's mobile phone business department lost about 2006 billion US dollars in the three years from 2008 to 3. At that time, its mobile phone business had become Motorola's heaviest burden.

Well, it seems that this is still the case now. After all, although Motorola has also launched Android phones, they did not focus here. Instead, they are one of the more active mobile phone manufacturers supporting Google's GOS system.

The reality proves that their vision is indeed not very good. Now the market share of Google's GOS system is even lower than that of Microsoft's Windows system. So the situation of Motorola's mobile phone business can be imagined...

In Baron's previous life, Motorola would be officially split into two new companies - Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions - at the beginning of next year.

After the split, Motorola Mobility (MMI) consists of two major departments: the mobile terminal and home broadband business of the original Motorola.

As for the other part, Motorola Solutions Inc. (MSI), in addition to its two main businesses of public safety solutions represented by TETRA and mobile computing technologies based on RFID, will also provide services such as data collection, integrated command and control communications, and wireless LAN.

However, it is obvious that given Motorola's current situation, this split must be brought forward. Their shareholders are eager to get rid of the burden of Motorola Mobility as soon as possible!
(End of this chapter)