Google spends $18b on rat poison

[time]

Google buys Motorola (http://www.buzzmachine.com/2011/08/15/rat-poison/)

[CougTek]

I firmly believe that lawyers are our society's worst disease.

[MaxBurn]

Thought it was a good deal for them, and a bad idea that they were going to handle it like a separate company. Bringing those patents in house gives the freedom to use them and unfortunately the nuclear defense arsenal backup for litigation return fire that seems necessary now.

For the consumer I hope they can use it to control the hardware and make an overall more polished smartphone experience.

[sechs]

I guess this is great news for Microsoft....

[ddrueding]

Certainly useful for Google. They needed the patents. They really had two options:

1. Kill the patent system quickly enough to avoid the issue.
2. Get a crap load of patents that everyone is licensing already to keep them off your back.

[ddrueding]

A joke from a Russian website:

"Mr. Brin, we bought Motorola"
"Great! Which model?"
"Uh....model?"

[BingBangBop]

P.S. I really like the title on this thread.