Google gets EU and US green light over Motorola takeover
GOOGLE has won the approval of US and European regulators for the $12.5bn (£7.9bn) purchase of Motorola Mobility.
Both the US Justice Department and European antitrust authorities both warned, however, that they would monitor how patents are used to ensure they comply with antitrust rules.
Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are concerned that patents essential to ensuring communications devices sold by different companies work together are licensed for a reasonable fee.
The Justice Department said in a statement yesterday that it “will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action to stop any anticompetitive use of SEP [standard essential patent] rights.”
Google, whose Android software is the top operating system for internet-enabled smart phones, said in August that it would buy phone-maker Motorola for its 17,000 patents and 7,500 patent applications, as it looks to compete with rivals such as Apple and defend itself and Android manufacturers in patent litigations.
The deal will give Google one of the industry’s largest patent libraries, as well as hardware manufacturing operations that will allow Google to develop its own line of smart phones.