Let's just break it down thusly:
Google SVP and chief legal officer David Drummond pens a blog post explaining the company's position in the current patent situation.
Microsoft's lawyer responds ... on Twitter ... saying Google could have teamed up with it in the patent auction, and basically that Google needs to quit whining. (See our editorial: "Keep it in the courtroom, folks")
And now Drummond has updated the previous Google Blog post with the following:
It's not surprising that Microsoft would want to divert attention by pushing a false "gotcha!" while failing to address the substance of the issues we raised. If you think about it, it's obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer. Microsoft's objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners. Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android — and having us pay for the privilege — must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn't fall for it.Ultimately, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened, forcing Microsoft to sell the patents it bought and demanding that the winning group (Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, EMC) give a license to the open-source community, changes the DoJ said were “necessary to protect competition and innovation in the open source software community.” This only reaffirms our point: Our competitors are waging a patent war on Android and working together to keep us from getting patents that would help balance the scales.
Oh, snap. Hardball. Shots fired and returned. Pick your catchphrase. This isn't going away any time soon, folks.
Source: Google Blog
Update: And -- surprise, surprise -- Microsoft's lead of corporate communications is back on the Twitter, saying:
Hello again David Drummond. This is going to take a few tweets, so here we go. Let’s look at what Google does not dispute in their reply.We offered Google the opportunity to bid with us to buy the Novell patents; they said no.Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else.SO partnering with others & reducing patent liability across industry is not something they wanted to help do
