Both the European Union and US Department of Justice have accepted Google’s proposal to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.
Google’s buyout of Motorola Mobility has resolved two major obstacles. After European Union approved the deal, US Department of Justice (DoJ) declared late Monday afternoon that Google’s bid to purchase Motorola for $12.5 billion does not infringe antitrust laws and will be permitted to continue.
The DoJ wrote in a statement “After a deep review of the proposed transactions, the Antitrust Division has concluded that each procurement is not likely to considerably lessen competition and has closed these three interrogation”
Google’s buyout of Motorola is, for the most part, a patent purchase. Motorola owns 17,000 patents related to mobile technology that Google requires to fight back in opposition to the likes of Apple and other giants.
Google Vice President and Deputy Council Don Harrison said in a post on the Official Google Blog that “the purchase of Motorola will assist supercharge Android. It will also augment the competition and provide consumers faster innovation, a greater choice and great user experiences.”
Through its six-month interrogation the DoJ determined that there was little potential anti-competitive utilization of standard essential patents (SEPs) acquired in all three deals based on “the clear assurance by Microsoft & Apple to license SEPs on fair, moderate and non-discriminatory terms, as well as their liabilities not to seek injunctions in conflicts including SEPs.” Google also “made commitments” to adequately utilization and license its SEPs.
While Google’s Android OS is already being used on hundreds of millions of smartphones across the globe, still the company has not yet created a handset of its own. This buyout of Motorola would serve as Google’s attempt into the consumer technology hardware arena.
In order to accomplish its Motorola purchase, Google must now gain authorization from the governments of Taiwan, Israel and China. According to the Associated Press, authorization from Chinese government may prove to be the most problematic step in the regulatory procedure due to Google’s irregular relationship with the Chinese government, when Google last year blamed for damaging its Gmail service.
