Although the patent case involving Google and largely Apple influenced Rockstar Consortium has yet to begin, the first victory seems to have been won, and that victory is the opportunity for Google to fight off this case in the California courts as opposed to having it litigated in East Texas, which is well known for being a court location that gives patent trolls an easier time coming out of these cases successful. The case is believed to have heavy influences from Google’s main competitor, Apple, who is part of the group of large companies that make up the Rockstar Consortium, which was also founded in part by other companies that include Microsoft, Sony, Blackberry, and Ericsson to buy up the $4.5 billion worth of patents from former Canadian telecom company Nortel.
Apple not only funded the largest portion of that $4.5 billion totaling the amount of $2.6 billion, but they also hold the majority of the patents that came from Nortel. The patent deal offered about 2,000 patents in all, and at least 1,147 of those are in Apple’s ownership. US District Judge Claudia Wilken is the judge that will be overseeing the case, and she made it clear that she sees a direct link between the litigation decisions made by Rockstar Consortium and the beneficial interests to Apple’s business. With Apple being the majority shareholder of Rockstar, and seeing Google as nothing more than a company who stole some of their ideas from iOS and applied them to the development of the Android ecosystem, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to think that they might be trying to sway the direction of the Google/Rockstar case.
Although nothing is confirmed as of yet, it seems that Rockstar’s tactics and decisions are likely that of Apple’s in an attempt to derail Google as much as possible over the future advancement and progress with Android. As Wilken points out, Rockstar will have a significantly more difficult time in this case’s litigation process since it’s not able to have it handled in the state where it has strong ties. The original suit for this case was pushed out in October of last year, and Google promptly counter sued for rights to have the case held in the state of California.