Apple, Microsoft trying to kill Android, Google cries

California, Aug 5: The Android-maker Google Inc accused its rival software giant Microsoft, Oracle and iPhone-maker Apple of conducting a "organized campaign" to kill Android mobile OS platform.

Through a blog post tittled 'When Patent Attacks Android' in their blog, Google charged that "Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies" are trying to kill Android through "bogus patents" after it became a popular smartphone platform.

"Android is on fire. More than 550,000 Android devices are activated every day, through a network of 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers.... But Android"s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents," said David Drummond, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer.

Google said that the rivals had formed a consortia to buy-out several patents to block Google of buying that patents for Android. The California-based company also said that it lost the bid to buy Novell and Nortel patents because of the rivals organized campaign.

The search giant Google also accused rivals of trying to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android than Windows Phone 7 by "seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device."

"Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it."

Soon after this post, Microsoft retorted saying that it offered Google for a joint bid for Novell's patent. Microsoft said that Google turned down the chance to join its bid on the Novell patents.

"Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no," Microsoft's top lawyer Brad Smith tweeted.

Later, Google came up with an update to their blog post describing the reasons why they turned down Microsoft's offer.

"Microsoft's objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners," Google said.

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