ITC SAYS MOTOROLA MOBILITY GUILTY OF MICROSOFT PATENT INFRINGEMENT

The United States International Trade Commission ruled late Tuesday that Motorola Mobility is guilty of infringing on one of Microsoft’s patents. The patent is related to calendar sync and how one might use a device to schedule a meeting, BBC News explained. Microsoft originally filed a suit against Motorola Mobility in August in an attempt to block sales of several Motorola Android smartphones, such as DROID 2, DROID X and several others, and accused Motorola Mobility of infringing on seven total patents. The ITC judge ruled that Motorola Mobility devices do not infringe on six of Microsoft’s patents, however. Microsoft recently filed a similar lawsuit against Barnes & Noble, and the company has already reached licensing agreements with HTC, Samsung, ViewSonic and several other firms.

MOTOROLA MOBILITY SHAREHOLDERS OVERWHELMING APPROVE GOOGLE ACQUISITION

Motorola Mobility on Thursday announced that stockholders voted to approve Google’s proposed $12.5 billion merger. At the company’s special stockholder meeting on Thursday, roughly 99% of Motorola shares voting cast their vote in favor of the acquisition, which amounts to $40 per share in cash for complete ownership of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. ”We are pleased and gratified by the strong support we have received from our stockholders, with more than 99 percent of the voting shares voting in support of the transaction,” Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha said in a statement. “We look forward to working with Google to realize the significant value this combination will bring to our stockholders and all the new opportunities it will provide our dedicated employees, customers, and partners.”

First announced back in August, Google intends to acquire Motorola Mobility and run it as a separate entity in terms of operations. As Google CEO Larry Page explained, however, patents are also a big part of the deal. Google intends to use the tens of thousands of patents it will control as a result of the merger as a new line of defense in a series of patent battles between its various Android partners and aggressively litigious companies like Apple and Microsoft.

MOTOROLA MOBILITY TO LAYOFF 800

Motorola Mobility will spend $31 million as it lays off 800 employees ahead of its planned acquisition by Google, Bloomberg reported on Monday. Motorola said in a regulatory filing that it would spend $27 million in employee severance and an additional $4 million closing a number of existing facilities. “Motorola Mobility continues to focus on improving its financial performance by taking actions to manage the company’s costs,” company spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch-Erickson told Bloomberg. Google announced its intentions to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion on August 15th. Google CEO Larry Page said the acquisition would provide Google with patents that will help the company defend its Android partners in lawsuits with Microsoft, Apple and others.

GOOGLE INCREASED BID FOR MOTOROLA MOBILITY 33% IN JUST 9 DAYS

Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility is already starting to lose that new car smell, but a fresh batch of financial details has now emerged, providing deeper insight into how the deal actually went down. According to an SEC filing that Motorola Mobility released yesterday, Google made an initial offer of $30 per share on August 1st, but soon raised that bid to $37 per share on August 9th, after Moto and its advisers asked for $43.50. On that same day, Google again raised its offer to $40 per share, even though Motorola wasn't accepting bids from other firms, for fear that a public auction would jeopardize its sale. This 33 percent increase ultimately added some $3 billion to the pot, bringing the final price tag to $12.5 billion. A Mountain View spokeswoman declined to comment on the negotiations, though its aggressive bidding suggests that the search giant desperately wanted the deal to go through. The documents also reveal that patent-related issues were at the forefront of discussions from the very beginning, when Google's Senior Vice President Andy Rubin met with Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha to talk about their mutual concerns, way back in July. According to the Wall Street Journal, these talks eventually convinced Jha that his company would be better off under Google's stewardship, amid fears that Moto could get swallowed by the stormy seas of patent litigation, anxieties that the exec made all too apparent just four days before the merger was announced.

GOOGLE BUYING MOTOROLA MOBILITY

Google has announced it is acquiring handset maker Motorola Mobility for $40 per share or $12.5 billion. Google will making Motorola Mobility a "dedicated Android partner" to "enhance competition in mobile computing" and "supercharge the Android ecosystem." Google CEO Larry Page said "Motorola Mobility's total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers."

The acquisition also give Google access to Motorola Mobility's treasure chest of patents which it can use to help defend itself against lawsuits.

Motorola Mobility has been a strong Android partner to Google and launched the flagship Droid lineup for Verizon. Google will continue to operate its new toy as a separate business and not morph it into an in-house hardware wing.

MOTOROLA MOBILITY RELEASES Q4 AND FULL YEAR EARNINGS; Q1 2011 FORECAST BLEAK

Motorola Mobility on Wednesday reported its fourth quarter and full year 2010 earnings. It also gave grim but anticipated guidance for the first quarter of 2011 as Verizon Wireless, the company’s top carrier partner, prepares to launch the iPhone 4. Motorola’s revenues were up 21% year-over-year to $3.4 billion and net revenues from the company’s Mobile Devices division grew 33% year-over-year to $2.4 billion. Smartphone shipments were well under Wall Street’s consensus, however, coming in at 4.9 million units. Some analysts’ expectations were as high as 5.6 million units. Shipments totalled 13.7 million smartphones for the full year, and the company shipped 37.3 million feature phones and smartphones combined in 2010. Motorola forecasts a loss of between $26 and $62 million in the first quarter of 2011, which amounts to $0.09 and $0.21 per share in the red. Analysts had projected a profit of $0.01 per share in the quarter.