Google buys yet more IBM patents

Google has acquired more than 222 patents from IBM, including many pertaining to advertising and marketing.

This is the second wave of patents bought by the search engine giant from IBM; it had previously bought around 2000 patents in July and September of last year.

The patents cover a variety of technologies, including advertising, email management, server backup, tuning and recovery, e-commerce, mobile web page display, instant messaging, online calendaring and database tuning. All issues that are of relevance to mobile web design.

Google has not yet commented on the move, although it has said in the past that buying patents help it to prevent intellectual property lawsuits, or to help it defend itself when a lawsuit is made against them.

William Stofega, an expert in mobile device technology and trends, told one industry website: “Google has had a great run with what they’ve done so far and it’s clear their patent portfolio isn’t as rich as those of others, especially in mobile.

“If you’re going to be a mobile platform player, you need to make sure you have your ducks in a row regarding intellectual property.”

Google will also acquire 24,000 patents when it buys Motorola Mobility later on this year. The deal is estimated to be worth $12.5bn.