Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Post # 22: Google, involved or not?
Apple is criticising Google for their laissez faire attitude in legal issues that, Apple believes, does actually concern them. The ambiguity of Google’s stance emerges because Google is often a partner of firms that are in legal disputes. The most obvious example of this is their development of the Android operating system that multiple phone company’s use. Indeed Apple formed a very compelling argument that Google could no longer be considered as 'third party' within certain patent lawsuits involving Samsung.
The close association between Google and Samsung calls into question the credibility of Google’s assertion that they are simply neutral third party. In the case of legal disputes between Samsung and Apple, Google is unhappily being pulled into legal proceedings that they would prefer to ignore. It will be interesting to see if Google maintains their stance as a neutral third party or choses to get involved. In the past, for instance, Google has been active in the ITC investigation of Nokia's complaint against HTC and had close dealings within multiple German Nokia v. HTC lawsuits.
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This is an interesting case. On one hand Google is technically a neutral third party, and on the other hand it looks as if Google has a interest in going against apple and siding with a company they they do close business with. It looks as if apple is trying to find a way to waste Google's time and pull them into litigation.
ReplyDeleteGoogle's neutral behavior may stem from its fear of complete dependency on Samsung to carry the Android platform. With the growing popularity of Samsung, Google may not want a binding partnership with just one manufacturer.
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