Mark Bridge writes:
Patents were a very popular topic of conversation last week. Google sold its Motorola Mobility smartphone business to Lenovo but hung on to most of the patents. Does this mean the patents were the most valuable part of the business? Well, when you look at the difference between the original purchase price and the sale price, it seems a reasonable conclusion.
Meanwhile, Google also arranged a cross-licence patent agreement with Samsung... and Samsung agreed a patent licensing deal with Ericsson. Everyone happy? Well, perhaps ‘sated’ is a better word.
And while we’re on the subject of Samsung, it’s asked Carphone Warehouse to run 60 of its stand-alone shops across Europe. All this, and illy coffee too.
Other cheering news came from Ofcom, which confirmed that all the UK’s major mobile networks now offered 90% 3G coverage. Mobile marketing and mobile wallet venture Weve launched a beta version of its mobile display advertising service in the UK. And new rules from the Office of Fair Trading have clarified in-app payments, which promises to be good news for parents who’ve given their children an iPad. (26 million iPads shipped worldwide in the last quarter, says Apple, with IDC estimating that was a third of the global tablet market in Q4).
Finally, there were a few goodbyes last week. We said farewell to Inq Mobile, the Hutchison Whampoa handset manufacturer turned app producer. Azzurri Communications said goodbye to CEO Vim Vithaldas, who’s overseen a successful refinancing arrangement. And AT&T told us it wasn’t interested in taking over Vodafone. Not at the moment, anyway.
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