Google and LG Electronics have both just announced that they will be entering into a long term cross-licensing patent agreement that will span over the next decade. The search giant out of Mountain View, California and the South Korean Electronics company will be sharing each others current patents with one another as well as those that come out of the following ten years. LG states that the agreement covers a “broad range” of technologies and other products, and that they are pleased to be entering into such an agreement of this nature. In a world full of patent lawsuits between some of the biggest corporations over year’s old tech and ideas, two of the biggest, have committed to sharing ideas with each other. What a notion.
In a statement from Google’s deputy general counsel of patents Allen Lo, Google is also”pleased to enter into an agreement with a leading global technology company like LG.” In an obvious follow up statement, Lo mentions that creating such a cross-licensing deal will allow both companies to focus on bringing great products and services to people around the globe, and that sounds like nothing short of the most honest truth we’ve ever come across. Google and LG already have a great working relationship, at least it would appear, as LG has been behind two of the past generation Nexus devices with the Nexus 4 and last year’s Nexus 5.
Unfortunately neither company brought up what exactly the terms of the agreement includes, so we have no idea whether or not they already have big plans in the works or if they’re merely trying to set the stage for the future so that they can begin to work towards amazing new things. What is a good possibility is that both Google and LG want to lay groundwork for having a stronger foothold in the world of Android. Google may be looking to keep LG on a short leash when it comes to the way they want their OS to appear on devices, while LG may find that a cross-licensing deal could help them continue to excel as one of the leading Android OEMs. What ever the terms are, for now it sounds like something that consumers will benefit from in the long run. This is how technology patents should be dealt with.