Google has avoided a legal battle with U.S. regulators, who were accusing Google of misusing patents to obstruct smartphone competitors as well as agreeing to change some of their business practices.
The Federal Trade Commission voted 5-0 in advantage to Google to close the investigation into whether Google twisted its search results, but Google stated they would remove any restrictions they had with their search advertising service and give companies the option to keep their content out of Google’s search results.
Google’s competitors would have found the result to close the investigation a disappointment as Google dominate Internet search and violate antitrust laws as they favour their own services.
Google will not be able to take competitors to court regarding intellectual property of patents as they have agreed to license their technology on reasonable terms.
The agency decided to vote 4-1 on the patent settlement; meaning that even though Google cannot take competitors to court for standard-essential patents they can still stop competitors from using patents if they don’t reach a licensing agreement.
Google are fortunate not to get involved with a legal battle and saved a lot of time and money especially with IP lawyers and going back and fourth to court. Google may have had to make some changes to the way they operate but this is a better outcome.