Apple’s Rockstar Patent Consortium Rejected to Keep Lawsuit in Texas

A US federal judge has ordered on Thursday that Google’s court battle against Rockstar, a “patent troll” owned by its competitors, should take place in California rather than Texas, reports Reuters.

Rockstar consortium1

Rockstar has multiple investors, and Apple is one of them. The company outbid Google for thousands of Nortel Network Corp. patents when the latter went bankrupt three years ago. After paying $4.5 billion for those patents, Rockstar has sued a handful of smartphone manufacturers who’s handsets run Android. It is worth noting here that Apple paid more than half ($2.6 billion) of Rockstar’s $4.5 billion Nortel patent purchase.

Of course, Google was one of the companies Rockstar sued last year, but the search giant has counter-sued and asked the court to move the legal dispute to California from Texas, a place known as friendly ground for patent owners.

“Google demonstrates a direct link between Apple’s unique business interests, separate and apart from mere profitmaking,” Wilken wrote.

For instance, Rockstar’s patent litigation “advances Apple’s interest in interfering with Google’s Android business,” Wilken wrote.

In yesterday’s ruling, US District Judge Claudia Wilken agreed with most of Google’s points and ruled that Apple and Rockstar are sufficiently linked for the case to be fought in California.

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