The United States Justice Department is said to be on the verge of approving Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The announcement could be made as early as next week according to sources familiar with the matter.
The deal could give Google a treasure-trove of technology patents that can be used in its smartphone legal problems. But the online search giant still had to deal with antitrust agencies in the United States and Europe. They said that they would monitor how Google will use the patents. The European Commission set the deadline to decide regarding the approval of the acquisition on Monday.
The Justice Department said that it would also clear a second tech-patent deal that had caused antitrust concerns in the smartphone industry. It would allow a group of tech companies that include Microsoft, Apple, and Research in Motion to acquire a set of patents from Nortel Networks for $4.5 billion. The investigators were trying to find out whether the tech companies involved in the deal would use the patents against smartphone companies using Google’s Android platform.
The decisions from the Justice Department came in time when tech companies have been battling in courtrooms across the globe over patent issues. The lawsuits involved different patents regarding smartphone technologies.
