The International Trade Commission judge determined the technology Microsoft uses for wireless communication with the Xbox doesn’t infringed on a Motorola Mobility patent for wireless connectivity.

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As reported Thursday evening by the Wall Street Journal, the cuts will eliminate more than 10 percent of the hardware maker’s workforce.

A Motorola spokesman confirmed the company is making cuts, but declined to go into details.

“These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer,” Motorola said in a statement. “It’s obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition.”

Google announced in August it would cut some 4,000 jobs, or 20 percent of the Motorola workforce.

In December, Motorola announced a significant cutback of its South Korean operations, a move that resulted in 500 job losses. The same month, Google said it was selling Motorola’s set-top box business to Arris for $2.35 billion.

“Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”
– Google CEO Larry Page

If the driving motivation behind Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility truly was the company’s patent arsenal, the search behemoth isn’t seeing much return on its investment.

This week, Google’s Motorola Mobility division was dealt yet another setback in its ongoing intellectual property spat with Microsoft, when a judge gutted some of the patent claims it had asserted against the software company.

On Thursday in Seattle, U.S. District Judge James Robart issued an order invalidating more than a dozen claims across three patents Google asserted against Microsoft. All three patents cover technology related to the encoding and decoding of digital video, and while Robart determined some of their claims to be legitimate (for now), he found that 13 were not specific enough to be brought to bear in this case.

And so he granted Microsoft’s motion for partial summary judgment, tossing those 13 claims. Robart’s decision significantly narrows the case, and bodes well for Microsoft, which claims that Google has failed to make the patents at issue available on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The move, which will mostly affect Motorola’s R&D and consumer mobile device marketing organizations, will eliminate an estimated 500 jobs in South Korea. Once it’s completed, only Motorola’s Home business and a portion of its iDEN operations will continue in Korea. Google described it as a “difficult but necessary decision.”

News of the cuts follows an August regulatory filing from Google that described a restructuring that would eliminate about 4,000 jobs at Motorola Mobility, which Google acquired for $12.5 billion in August of 2011.

“These changes are designed to return Motorola’s mobile devices unit to profitability, after it lost money in fourteen of the last sixteen quarters,” Google said in the filing. “That said, investors should expect to see significant revenue variability for Motorola for several quarters. While lower expenses are likely to lag the immediate negative impact to revenue, Google sees these actions as a key step for Motorola to achieve sustainable profitability.”

In an amicus brief filed late Wednesday with the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the trade agency argued that a district court was right to dismiss a request by Google’s Motorola Mobility division for an injunction against sales of the iPhone and iPad in the United States.

The patents Motorola had attempted to assert against Apple were SEPs, which it is obligated to license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. And in the FTC’s eyes, using the threat of SEP-based injunctions to demand higher royalties or other favorable licensing terms is bad business. It’s a “patent hold-up,” to quote the agency’s term.

“Hold-up and the threat of hold-up can deter innovation by increasing costs and uncertainty for other industry participants, including those engaged in inventive activity,” the FTC said in its brief. “It can also distort investment and harm consumers by breaking the connection between the value of an invention and its reward — a connection that is the cornerstone of the patent system.”

But above all, patent hold-ups may undermine the value of standard setting, and that by extension could reduce interoperability, which isn’t good for anyone.

And in the end, disagreements over SEPs are better settled by financial means. By agreeing to license IP as an industry standards, companies who do so — like Google — have already acknowledged that they can be properly compensated by a royalty. So seeking an injunction against an allegedly infringing product is really just overkill. If there are damages in cases like these, they should be monetary.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time the FTC has sounded off on SEP-driven lawsuits and Google’s efforts to use them to enhance its negotiating stance. Back in June, the agency told the International Trade Commission that Google’s request for import bans against Microsoft’s Xbox and Apple’s iPhone for their alleged infringement of its SEPs could hurt competition.

Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment.

A new court filing in the pair’s infringement case reveals that Apple and Google have been discussing the idea of resolving their dispute over standard essential patents via arbitration. Earlier this month, the companies exchanged proposals about hammering out some sort of global licensing agreement over standard essential patents, and both seem to agree that binding arbitration is the way to go. From the filing:

Apple is also interested in resolving its dispute with Motorola completely and agrees that binding arbitration may be the best vehicle to resolve the parties’ dispute. Accordingly, on November 8, 2012, Apple sent Motorola a letter agreeing that the parties should enter into arbitration and proposing the parameters of the arbitration.

On November 13, 2012, Motorola responded to Apple setting forth further proposals for the scope of the arbitration, and the parties are now negotiating how to proceed. Included in the parties’ discussions are proposals for a stand-still to the parties’ pending litigations.

A stand-down in litigation? Binding arbitration? That’s a remarkable easing of tensions between two companies that have been sparring the way Apple and Google have. What happened?

A few things:

First, some background …

• We need to remember that Apple CEO Tim Cook hates patent litigation, which he sees as a “pain in the ass.” And he’s gone on record saying Apple would prefer to settle IP disputes where it can. “I’ve always hated litigation and I continue to hate it,” Cook told analysts in April. “We just want people to invent their own stuff. So if we could get to some arrangement where we could be assured that’s the case and a fair settlement on the stuff that’s occurred, I would highly prefer to settle than to battle.”
• The patents Google acquired through its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility haven’t exactly proven a formidable weapon in the smartphone patent wars. Indeed, the patent portfolio Motorola first brought to bear in many of its cases against Apple has largely been winnowed down to standard essential patents the company is obligated to license on FRAND (fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory) terms. And the fact that Google is using them as a weapon in these battles at all is drawing a lot of unwanted regulatory scrutiny ahead of the company’s imminent showdown with the FTC.

Now on to the specifics …


• Sources say those “secret” settlement talks between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Larry Page earlier this year went reasonably well, setting the stage for the sort of tentative stand-down that’s now been proposed.
• Indeed, Apple actually made a settlement offer to Google earlier this year, sources say, but nothing came of it.
• Despite that, high-level background discussions between the two companies continued.
• Then, in October, Google abruptly withdrew a complaint it had brought against Apple with the International Trade Commission, not a month after the ITC agreed to review it.
• Sources say that withdrawal, which was never explained, was not a coincidence. Could it have been a goodwill gesture? Possibly. Certainly, it’s a clear de-escalation. As best I can tell, however, Apple has not responded in kind.

So what now?

That’s not at all clear. Though Google and Apple are talking arbitration, they are far from agreeing on the terms of an arbitration proceeding — let alone a reasonable royalty base. It’s entirely possible they never make it to arbitration.

But at least they’re talking about it.

Apple and Google both declined to comment on their negotiations.

Point your browser at the German Web site of its Motorola Mobility division and you’ll find a paucity of smartphones, not a single Android tablet, and a notice promising some updated devices by the end of July.

July has come and gone, of course. And now we’re well into October and those promised updated devices are nowhere to be found. Why the delay?

We put that question to both Google and its Motorola subsidiary and neither has yet responded, but there’s one obvious explanation: The multiple injunctions against Motorola Mobility products that Microsoft and Apple have won in Germany. To date, Microsoft been granted three separate injunctions against Motorola Mobility in Germany. Apple has won three as well. So with half a dozen injunctions against it, Google likely had no recourse but to yank much of its allegedly infringing portfolio, leaving the German smartphone markets with just the Razr, the Razr i, and the Gleam HD + — a fraction of its handset portfolio.

An irksome situation, I imagine, for Google, which spent $12.5 billion on Motorola Mobility not just to “supercharge the Android ecosystem,” but to acquire a patent portfolio with which to protect its mobile OS. At this point, that costly acquisition doesn’t appear to have succeeded at either.

Update: Reached for comment, a Motorola spokeswoman said the decline in devices we’re seeing in Germany was planned all along. “As we have previously stated Motorola Mobility is focusing on fewer mobile devices,” she told AllThingsD. “As a result we have phased out some of our lower tier devices in Europe/Germany.”

And what of those updated devices the company promised by the end of July? Who knows …

Ruling on another of Microsoft’s many claims against Google, a regional court of Mannheim found that Motorola’s Android-based smartphones do not violate a Microsoft patent that allows apps to work on different handsets, a boon for developers who don’t want to write code for multiple devices. In doing so, the court rejected Microsoft’s request for a sales ban on infringing devices in Germany.

So, a rare loss for Microsoft, which has so far won three injunctions against Motorola hardware in Germany as part of its efforts to force the company to pay the same licensing fees on its smartphones as other Android device makers.

“This decision does not impact multiple injunctions Microsoft has already been awarded and has enforced against Motorola products in Germany,” Microsoft said in statement. “It remains that Motorola is broadly infringing Microsoft’s intellectual property, and we hope it will join the vast majority of Android device makers by licensing Microsoft’s patents.”

“Motorola Mobility today announced that it has acquired Viewdle, a leading imaging & gesture recognition company,” a Motorola representative said in a statement. “Motorola and Viewdle have an existing commercial agreement and have been collaborating for some time.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Among Viewdle’s products was an app called Social Camera that performs facial recognition to identify those in a photo from among one’s friends.

CNET reported earlier this week that a deal was close, noting that talks had been under way with Motorola since before Google acquired the company.

Filed in mid-August, the complaint accused Apple of infringing seven Motorola patents and asked the ITC to ban the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, the iPad 2, the new iPad, the Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, which Google argued were in violation of them. On Sept. 19, the ITC agreed to review Google’s claims. So its sudden withdrawal just a few weeks later is remarkable, to say the least.

What happened? That’s not clear, and Motorola hasn’t replied to a request for comment. But there are two rationales that spring immediately to mind. The first: Those “secret” settlement talks between Google CEO Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook have begun to show promise, and Google is backing off as a result. Note: In its filing, Google does not speak of a settlement at all.

The second: Google is no longer quite as confident in its chances to prevail over Apple in this arena. As we’ve noted here before, this complaint is the company’s second against the iPhone maker with the ITC. And the first one didn’t go well at all. And the one that was withdrawn today was based on patents that are thought to be not nearly as strong. Perhaps Google is cutting its losses, fearing that an unfavorable ruling from the ITC would further undermine the idea that acquiring Motorola Mobility and its patents for $12.5 billion was a wise move.

Reached for comment, Google had only this to say: “As we have said many times before, we will continue to vigorously defend our partners.”

The ITC voted Tuesday to investigate a patent-infringement complaint brought against Apple by Google. Filed last month by Quinn Emanuel — the law firm that represented Samsung in its recent courtroom rout by Apple, the complaint alleges that the iPhone maker violated seven patents Google acquired through its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Among the accused devices: The iPhone 3GS; the iPhone 4 and 4S; the iPad 2 and new iPad; the Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air. In other words, a big chunk of Apple’s product line. Google is asking the ITC to ban the importation of all these devices, though that’s not its end game here. The company is really looking to chicken-wing Apple into negotiating a cross-licensing deal.

“We would like to settle these patent matters, but Apple’s unwillingness to work out a license leaves us little choice but to defend ourselves and our engineers’ innovations,” Google said in an August statement issued by Motorola.

A few things to remember here: The ITC’s decision to investigate Google’s claims is not a reflection of their merit. It’s pretty common for the agency to elect to consider complaints like these. This is the second time Motorola’s patents have been asserted against Apple in the ITC, and the first time things didn’t so go well. The ITC pretty much cleared Apple of infringement with respect to three patents, and remanded investigation of a fourth.

So Google here is taking a run at Apple with patents that are essentially second choice to a first-choice group that hasn’t proven very strong. This is another chance for the company to prove that the $12.5 billion it spent to gain Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio really will deliver the sort of IP protection Google claimed it would. As Google chief legal officer David Drummond said when the search behemoth first announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, “We believe we’ll be in a very good position to protect the Android ecosystem for all of our partners.”

Right now, I’m not sure “very good” is an accurate way to describe Google’s position with regard to protecting Android and the OEMs that use it with Motorola’s patents. Question is, will it be a year from now, when the ITC finally rules on this complaint?

A German court ruled Thursday that Motorola had infringed Apple’s patent on overscroll bounce or rubber banding, an iOS device feature that automatically bounces a document or Web page when a user reaches its end. The Munich Regional Court found that a number of Motorola devices made unsanctioned use of Apple’s intellectual property, among them the Motorola Milestone XT720, the Atrix and the XOOM. And it granted Apple’s request for a preliminary sales ban on those devices.

If Apple chooses to, it can post a $32 million bond to enforce the ban, which it will almost certainly do. Just as Motorola will almost certainly appeal the decision and continue to assail the validity of the patent Apple is asserting against it.

The Library of Virginia

After spiking to a 52-week high of $712.25 Friday, Google’s stock ended the day at $706.15, a price it hasn’t hit since 2007. That’s still a ways off from the record high of $747.24 it hit in November 2007, but it’s clearly headed into the same territory.

Google’s shares have gained about 19 percent since the company last reported earnings, when it turned in solid financials thanks to its thriving core advertising business.

More recently, they’ve been buoyed by Google’s well-received 7-inch Nexus tablet. Also fueling this resurgence of faith: What appears to be a tempering of concern over the integration of Motorola Mobility, which Google acquired earlier this year for $12.5 billion. The search behemoth recently hired Barclays to help it shop Motorola’s Home division, which makes and sells set-top boxes and cable modems. And it’s believed to be looking for a price of $2 billion.

Welcome back, class of 2013. Time to fire up your devices for the jam-packed fall.

As in, tech launches, of course, which is the lifeblood of the ADD-afflicted digital industry.

Perhaps prompted by Apple’s annual fall-event stylings — more on that below, of course — this week is already packed with events (all of which will be exhaustively covered by the crack team here at AllThingsD).

That includes two different smartphone unveiling events tomorrow by Motorola Mobility (a.k.a. Google) and Nokia (kinda a.k.a. Microsoft).

Amazon will take the whole next day for itself with the rollout of new Kindle formations, including what is expected to be a larger version, in the Los Angeles area.

Nintendo is up the following week on September 13, with an invite noting it will unveil how its “Wii U will change the future of gaming and entertainment” — is that all? — at an event in New York.

Today, HTC sent out an invite for a September 19 event in New York “to see what’s next.” It’s another mobile device is my guess!

And, a month later, Microsoft is the outlier of the group, with its own Windows 8 debut on October 26.

Of course, this is all due to the event Apple announced today for September 12 to introduce the iPhone 5, a fact that the tech giant was not even bothering to hide in its invite with a big 5 in the shadow of the 12.

Those clever imps at Apple are probably snickering away today at their Cupertino, Calif., HQ to see if we can figure it all out.

(We did, but are still parsing the symbols to find the location of the Holy Grail, too.)

So, as usual, Apple is at the center of the action, which others have smartly glommed onto (also as usual).

Thus, going forward forever more — and to get ahead in the consumer mindset before the holiday buying season — everyone will be required in the post-Labor Day time frame to hawk their latest goods.

Pity the poor consumers, perhaps, but get ready anyway, as there will be a pop quiz.

Speaking of back to school, here is my fave version from the under-appreciated movie musical “Grease 2”:

Bloomberg reports that the search behemoth has hired Barclays to help it shop Motorola’s Home division, which makes and sells set-top boxes and cable modems, among other things. The process is still in the very early stages, but sources familiar with it say Google is hoping Motorola’s home business will command a price of $2 billion.

That’s about half what Motorola was asking for it when it attempted to sell the division in 2009. Light Reading first reported Google’s interest in Barclays as banker on August 6.

Motorola Mobility declined to comment on the report.

In a filing this week with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Motorola said it had agreed to license to Apple its cellular standards-essential patents in Germany, following court approval of a FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) licensing offer Apple made to it earlier in the year (and the threat of antitrust litigation if Motorola refused).

The agreed-upon royalty rate? There isn’t one. And unless the companies are able to hammer one out in the days ahead, it will be determined by the German courts.

Evidently, investors feel that Apple’s win over Samsung is enough of a blow to the company and the broader Android ecosystem that it will de facto benefit RIM.

Which is a reasonable assumption. Now that the patents Apple asserted against Samsung are trial-tested and proven, other Android handset manufacturers are going to take a good, long look at their smartphone designs to make sure that they, too, don’t end up opposite Apple in the courtroom. And that’s going to slow their time to market, giving RIM a bit more breathing room to launch its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system. If Apple wins injunctive relief against Samsung, and is able to halt sales of infringing devices, RIM stands to benefit even more.

As Baird Equity analyst William Power told AllThingsD, “Depending on the level of product injunctions, it could open up opportunities for competing platforms like Blackberry and Windows.”

More crucially, the verdict in this case could increase the value of RIM’s patent portfolio, making it a more attractive acquisition target. Earlier this year, RIM’s collection of wireless patents was valued at between $1 billion and $2.5 billion. Now that Apple has won this landmark victory over Samsung, that price could rise. Certainly, it’s conceivable that mobile companies searching for some good defensive patents with which to bolster their own portfolios might look to an industry pioneer like RIM for such intellectual property. Google did as much with Motorola Mobility, and the price of that acquisition topped out at $12.5 billion.

Of course, RIM’s patent portfolio is largely untested by litigation. Indeed, RIM’s one big patent battle, with holding company NTP, ended with the BlackBerry maker being forced to pay a $612.5 million settlement. And therein lies the problem. RIM’s patents may not be protection enough to defend against companies like Apple and Microsoft that have big IP portfolios with keystone patents.

So in the end, RIM — after the brief window of opportunity afforded it by Apple’s victory over Samsung — may end up exactly where it is now.

Said Power, “Ultimately, we expect the Android players to identify workarounds or seek a negotiated settlement with Apple, resulting in a competitive environment similar to today. And that means continued challenges for RIM.”

The patents relate to Apple devices including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Motorola says. Motorola is seeking a ban on the import of those products made overseas.

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That’s the message today from Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and Horacio Gutierrez, head of the company’s intellectual property group. In a co-authored post entitled “A Solid Foundation for Patent Peace,” published this morning, the pair formalized some internal thinking that’s been going on since May and called on Google and Motorola to join it in hammering out a comprehensive settlement of intellectual property disputes between them.

“With its phones and tablets now subject to injunctions in the U.S. and Germany, Google can no longer doubt the relevance of Microsoft’s patent portfolio to Motorola’s products,” Smith and Gutierrez wrote. “Google can take one of two paths: It can choose either to engage in serious discussions to search for patent peace or persevere in its diversionary tactics. We hope it will choose the first course, and we stand ready to engage in good faith if it does.”

A reasonable appeal, but one offered with a number of important caveats.

First, the companies must ink a comprehensive agreement that covers all allegedly infringed patents. “Any approach that does not lead to the cessation of all the pending litigation will be short lived. Motorola’s public proposal to take a license for only a small sub-set of the large number of Microsoft patents used in its products will not result in durable patent peace,” Smith and Gutierrez argue.

Second, Google must honor its obligation to license Motorola’s standards-essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND), adopting the same “market rate” fee schedule that Microsoft argues is now standard in the industry.

If Google embraces these “two simple, common sense principles,” Microsoft is more than willing to settle its patent litigation with the company. But it’s skeptical that Google will ever do so.

“Google mounted a public relations and lobbying campaign deflecting attention from its refusal to honor its promise to standards bodies to license standards-essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, a practice that has prompted regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to investigate its conduct,” Smith and Gutierrez write. “Unfortunately, we have no reason to believe that Google’s diversionary tactics will cease any time soon, and in fact expect more of them in the future.”

Google deferred a request for comment to Motorola Mobility which issued the following statement:
“Microsoft wants to undercut Motorola’s industry-leading patent portfolio, licensed by more than 50 other companies on fair and reasonable terms, while seeking inflated royalties tied to standards that Microsoft alone controls. Motorola is always open to negotiations that avoid wasteful and abusive patent claims.”

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

In attempting to fend off Apple and Microsoft’s suits against Motorola Mobility and advancing its own patent litigation against both companies, Google, which is facing a lot of regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad over what some allege is abuse of SEPs, has been arguing that proprietary non-standardized technologies that become ubiquitous due to their popularity with consumers should be considered de facto standards.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Google General Counsel Kent Walker wrote:

While collaborative [Standards Setting Organizations (SSOs)] play an important part in the overall standard setting system, and are particularly prominent in industries such as telecommunications, they are not the only source of standards. Indeed, many of the same interoperability benefits that the FTC and others have touted in the SSO context also occur when one firm publishes information about an otherwise proprietary standard and other firms then independently decide (whether by choice or of necessity) to make complementary investments to support that standard in their products. … Because proprietary or de facto standards can have just as important effects on consumer welfare, the Committee’s concern regarding the abuse of SEPs should encompass them as well.

In other words, Google’s view is that just as there are patents that are standards essential, there are also patents that are commercially essential — patents that cover features that are so popular as to have become ubiquitous. The latter are just as ripe for abuse as the former, and withholding them is just as harmful to consumers and the competitive marketplace. Viewed through that lens, multitouch technology or slide-to-unlock might be treated the same way as an industry standard patent on, say, a smartphone radio.

This argument, of course, has massive implications for Apple, which has developed a treasure trove of what might be considered by some as commercially essential IP around the iPhone and iPad. And the company was quick to take severe exception to it. In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell rebutted Walker’s argument. “That a proprietary technology becomes quite popular does not transform it into a ‘standard’ subject to the same legal constraints as true standards,” he wrote.

The gist of Sewell’s letter is this: Standardized technologies facilitate interoperability among disparate devices by giving them the same core functionality. They create a platform for competition. Non-standardized technologies differentiate those devices, create competition and drive innovation in the marketplace. Subjecting non-standards-essential patents to the same rules as those governing standards-essential ones will hamper innovation and harm consumers. As Sewell writes:

The capabilities of an iPhone are categorically different from a conventional phone, and result from Apple’s ability to bring its traditional innovation in computing to the mobile market. Using an iPhone to take photos, manage a home-finance spreadsheet, play video games, or run countless other applications has nothing to do with standardized protocols. Apple spent billions in research and development to create the iPhone, and third party software developers have spent billions more to develop applications that run on it. The price of an iPhone reflects the value of these nonstandardized technologies — as well as the value of the aesthetic design of the iPhone, which also reflects immense study and development by Apple, and which is entirely unrelated to standards.

There’s a big difference between technology that became popular because it was adopted as an industry standard and technology that became popular because consumers fell in love with it. In the case of the smartphone patent wars, the first makes a cellphone a cellphone and the second makes it an iPhone. One is a core technology, the other is experiential, product differentiation.

Apple’s point is that if you remove the IP distinctions between the two, you remove a key incentive for innovators to innovate. Apple spent billions in research and development to create the iPhone. It didn’t spend that money to create the iPhone’s competition. And this is a point Apple and CEO Tim Cook have hammered home again and again, since the smartphone IP Hundred Years War began.

“From our point of view it’s important that Apple not be the developer for the world,” Cook remarked earlier this year at D10. “We take all of our energy and all of our care, and to have someone else put their name on it? The worst thing in the world that can happen to you if you’re an engineer and you’ve given your life to something is for someone to rip it off and put their name on it.”

Or to rip it off and use their own SEPs to squeeze a company for a license for it. Here’s Sewell again: “To enhance their bargaining position, the FRAND patent holders have sought injunctions or other exclusionary remedies — to threaten companies like Apple that have been leaders in developing product-differentiating technology, and to force them to either pay exorbitant royalties or license their product-differentiating technology.”

“No one should be able to get an injunction off a standards-essential patent because the owner of the patent has the responsibility to license it on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner,” said Cook at D10. “And so when somebody comes to you and tries to get some obscene level of money from you for this, they are in essence telling you they are not going to license it because they want to go try to get an injunction and use the court system to do that. In my view, they use it in a way that it wasn’t intended. … And you can always argue about the payment, and there has to be a forum for resolving those disputes. The problem in this industry is if you add up what everybody says the standards-essential patents are worth, no one else could be in the phone business. Competition would be locked out. And so it’s kind of gotten crazy — this is one issue. There is some of this that is maddening. It’s a waste; it’s a time-suck. However, does it stop innovation? It’s not going to stop us from innovating — no — but it’s overhead. It’s overhead that I wish didn’t exist.”

Now, to be fair, there are some very fundamental differences of opinion between Google and Apple over the viability of patents on these product-differentiating technologies, which is the whole reason for Google’s letter in the first place. And it should be noted that those differences are being litigated, and these two call-and-response letters are all part of the legal positioning around that. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft is a player in this spat as well, given its battle with Motorola over ActiveSync.

Apple declined comment on its letter. Google declined as well, telling AllThingsD that its letter to the Judiciary Committee “speaks for itself.” I’ve included that letter below as well as Apple’s. And below that is video from D10 in which Cook discusses the patent issue.

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