Google On The Nortel Loss, Patents As Government-Granted Monopolies, And Plates Of Spaghetti
Back in early April, Kent Walker, Google's Senior Vice President & General Counsel, wrote a post on the Google blog titled “Patents and innovation”. The reason behind the post was clear …
Context & Ripple Effects
This piece lands four months into an arc that began when Google offered $900 million for Nortel's patent portfolio as a defensive shield, only for Techdirt to warn the bid itself could mint new patent trolls depending on who won. Google lost the auction, and General Counsel Kent Walker answered with a "Patents and innovation" blog post arguing patents are government-granted monopolies — a rhetorical pivot from bidder to critic.
The timing matters because Google's mobile platform is exposed: without the Nortel portfolio, the company enters the smartphone patent wars under-armored while rivals hold ammunition it tried to buy. Walker's post is both policy argument and litigation positioning.
First-order effects
- Google enters licensing negotiations over mobile technology without the Nortel patents it bid $900 million for, leaving Android-facing litigation risk with whoever won the portfolio.
- Walker's monopoly framing gives Google a public-policy narrative to deploy in any dispute where it is accused of infringing government-granted exclusivities.
Second-order effects
- Rival platform holders who did acquire Nortel-era patent stock can price access or threaten suits against handset makers building on Android, pushing OEMs to seek their own defensive portfolios.
- Other cash-rich platform companies now face the same calculus Google did — buy patents defensively at auction prices or argue the system down publicly — raising the market value of any remaining telecom-era portfolios.
Third-order effects
- If large platforms keep losing auctions to patent aggregators and responding with reform rhetoric, the industry splits between owners of assertion-ready portfolios and licensees lobbying for change, setting up a regulatory fight over what software patents should cover.
The trend: The smartphone patent wars are converting legacy telecom portfolios into strategic currency, pushing losers like Google from the bidding table into public campaigns against the patent system itself.