An arms race appears to have broken out over high-tech patent acquisitions with companies jockeying to pad their intellectual property stores or risk paying a price in legal fees or royalties. That's why speculation abounds about how Apple may react to Google's move to acquire Motorola Mobility and its 17,000 cellphone patents. Apple may have gained a leg up in the patent wars when it -- along with five other companies -- outbid Google for Nortel's patent pool, which included some 6,000 patents and patent applications in telecommunications, Internet search and social networking.
e-Commerce Times