Google adds IBM patents as it looks to future

Google has gained hundreds of patents from IBM as it continues its intellectual property spending spree.
 
It has acquired 187 patents and 36 applications, adding to the 1,000 it purchased from IBM last summer.
 
The latest patents include a system for "using semantic networks to develop a social network".
 
Google has spent billions building its technology rights portfolio, including a $12.5bn (£7.7bn) deal for Motorola Mobility.
 
The California-based company has been actively bolstering its patent catalogue in the face of lawsuits from key competitors such as Apple and Microsoft.
 
Among the patents acquired in this latest deal is a patent which relates specifically to social networking sites, allowing "identifying common interests between users of a communication network".
 
Vicki Salmon, the chair of the litigation committee of the UK Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, believed this might be a nod that Google was moving from protecting existing technology and beginning to plan for the future.