The Rockstar Consortium has become a “patent dragnet”...

The Rockstar Consortium has become a “patent dragnet” that’s intent on killing off Google’s Android mobile operating system, Google said Monday in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Jose. Apple, BlackBerry and Microsoft are among the Google competitors that co-own Rockstar, which some critics claim is a patent assertion entity. Rockstar has filed multiple lawsuits against Google over the Android OS, including one in October that alleged Google had violated Rockstar-owned Nortel patents because of Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility (CD Nov 4 p18). Rockstar’s lawsuits have created “a cloud on Google’s Android platform; threatened Google’s business and relationships with its customers and partners, as well as its sales of Nexus-branded Android devices; and created a justiciable controversy between Google and Rockstar,” Google said in the lawsuit. Rockstar did not comment.