Widening Scrutiny of Google’s Smartphone Patents - NYTimes.com

It'll be interesting to see if/how Motorola Mobility's intellectual property-related policies change, as a Google subsidiary

"Google owns patents covering communications and data-handling technologies that are crucial for the basic operation of smartphones and tablets — what are known as standard-essential patents. The investigators are scrutinizing the company’s policies for licensing these patents and suing other companies that it claims are infringing on them, said these people, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified.
Google’s Motorola unit pledged to technology standards organizations that it would license the patents to others on “fair and reasonable” terms to stimulate the growth of the industry, benefiting all companies."

Widening Scrutiny of Google’s Smartphone Patents - NYTimes.com