GPC's Alexander Poltorak was interviewed about the fallout from the Nortel patent sale. ("Google: We didn’t co-bid on Novell patents because it was a trap", VentureBeat.com, August 4, 2011)
Weeks after the record-breaking sale of Nortel Networks' patent portfolio to a consortium of bidders, Google is still commenting on the significance of being outbid by a group of its competitors - and why it didn't join the winning consortium.
Article excerpt: But Alexander Poltorak, CEO of General Patent Corporation, says...that Google would not have been sued by Microsoft when it comes to Novell’s patent portfolio. Poltorak points out that companies in this position normally lay out agreements to make sure no companies undermine other members of the same consortium with respect to jointly owned patents. Of course, that would not stop Microsoft from suing Google when it comes to non-Novell patents.
“When Google declined to be part of the consortium to buy Novell’s patents, they opened themselves to possible attack,” Poltorak said.
Poltorak says the only course of action for Google now is to acquire a large amount of their own patents to protect themselves. If we had to guess, Google is probably looking to do just that.