Google girds for battle in wake of Apple's legal victory

Google bought ailing mobile device maker Motorola Mobility this year to stockpile patents for the war that was heating up with rival Apple. But those patents may not be much help in defending challenges to its Android mobile operating system in the wake of Apple's sweeping courtroom victory last week over Samsung.

Experts said that Google probably would unsheathe the 17,000 patents it picked up in the $12.5-billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility but that Google still would be outmatched. "In theory, the Motorola patents do matter because they give Google some leverage against Apple," UCLA law professor Douglas Lichtman said. But even so, he said, it's "not an even fight." "Motorola was not Apple's complete peer before its acquisition, and so owning Motorola does not make Google a complete peer today," Lichtman said.