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fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

Kevin Parrish at Tom's Hardware writes [tomshardware.com]:

Allen Lo, Deputy General Counsel for Patents at Google, published a blog announcing the launch of the Patent Purchase Promotion [google.com], an experimental marketplace where businesses and individuals can sell their patents to Google. Why? Because the company wants to remove "friction" from the patent market.

"Unfortunately, the usual patent marketplace can sometimes be challenging, especially for smaller participants who sometimes end up working with patent trolls," Lo said in the blog. "Then bad things happen, like lawsuits, lots of wasted effort, and generally bad karma. Rarely does this provide any meaningful benefit to the original patent owner."

...

Here's how Google's promotion will work: The company will open up the marketplace between May 8 and May 22, 2015. During that time, patent holders will head to a special portal and make pitches to Google that will include a description and what sellers want, financially. After May 22, Google will close the portal and review every submission. Google will then contact patent owners by June 26, 2015 if the company is interested in buying the submitted patent.

Additional coverage at ZDNet [zdnet.com].

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