Verizon workers soon to be back on duty!

Verizon Communications said today its workers are heading back to work August 22 without a contract, signaling some progress on a new contract.

The New York telecommunications provider said the company and the two unions representing the workers--the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers--have made headway in their talks over a new contract.

The workers, who are based in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, are returning after striking for nearly two weeks. The strike was a distraction for the company, which had to fill the empty positions with replacement workers, retirees, and managers.

The workers returning will have no new contract. They will be temporarily working under the terms of the old contract.

"We agreed to end the strike because we believe that is in the best interest of our customers and our employees," said Marc Reed, head of human relations for Verizon. "We remain committed to our objectives, and we look forward to negotiating the important issues that are integral to the future health of Verizon's wireline business."

The unions said the two sides have agreed on the new structure of the talks, but warned that the sides were still far apart.

Indeed, the unions appeared to have been blindsided by Verizon's official statement on the temporary arrangement.

Not long after that statement was released, the CWA and IBEW sent out an updated response lashing out at Reed's comments.

"We are disappointed to see this quote from Marc Reed, Verizon's executive vice president for human resources, that the company hoped 'to convince the unions to begin bargaining with us in good faith.' It is both inaccurate and insulting," the unions said in a statement.

"We agreed with management not to claim victory in changing the process, re-instituting the contract, or shaping our goals," they said. "We will live by that commitment."

But the unions warned that if Verizon doesn't retract the statement, they would continue to "fight and fight hard," likely complicating the talks.

CNET has not yet heard back from Verizon about the unions' response to Reed's quote.

The strike began August 7, with the unions claiming Verizon was dragging its feet on negotiating.

The strike had turned bitter over the past two weeks, with Verizon taking legal action to curtail its workers' protests. The company claimed that union members prevented replacement workers from entering the building, harassed managers, and engaged in acts of sabotage. It said the company was working with the FBI to investigate the damage done to its telecommunications equipment.


Earlier this week, Verizon said it would soon strip away the striking employees' health benefits and medical coverage.

The union, meanwhile, said Verizon managers were being too aggressive in their driving, and claimed two dozen reports of strikers getting clipped by cars.

Verizon is attempting to change the terms of the contract to better reflect the realities facing the older landline business. Executives have said the changes are necessary given the competitive pressures from cable rivals and wireless providers.

Verizon is seeking changes that would allow it to more easily fire employees, tie pay to performance, and require workers to pay for a share of health benefits.

The workers point to the record profits of the company and have dismissed the need for changes in their contracts. They also argue that they are responsible for the fixed-line infrastructure necessary to run the higher growth wireless business.

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Advertising groups lambaste Net address expansion

Advertisers and the Internet's overseers seem unable to reconcile a profound disagreement about the future of Internet addresses.

Three prominent groups representing advertisers--the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A)--have come down hard on a program to dramatically expand the number of Internet addresses beyond .com and .net to a new class that could include everything from .berlin and .movie to .plumber and .pepsi. The International Corporation for Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees Net addresses globally, approved in June the program to expand these so-called generic top-level domains (GTLDs) starting in 2012.

The three groups urged ICANN to reconsider the domain-name expansion program. The strongest terms came from the ANA, which outlined its concerns in an August 4 letter to ICANN that threatens broader and "far more expensive" action than just strongly worded correspondence.

"Should ICANN refuse to reconsider and adopt a program that takes into account the ANA's concerns expressed in this letter, ICANN and the program present the ANA and its members no choice but to do whatever is necessary to prevent implementation of the program and raise the issues in appropriate forums that can consider the wisdom, propriety, and legality of the program," ANA said in its letter.

It sent copies to senior officials at White House, Commerce Department, and House and Senate judiciary committees. And in July, it sent a letter (PDF) to the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration saying "ICANN has violated its own Code of Conduct and abrogated its Affirmation of Commitments with the Department of Commerce," saying it shouldn't be taken for granted that the department will renew its contract with ICANN to manage Internet names.

But ICANN itself vigorously defends the program, dismissing many criticisms as ill-informed.

"The assertions in your letter are either incorrect or problematic in several respects," said ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom in his response (PDF). After taking six years to come up with the program, ICANN shows no sign of giving an inch.

ICANN's tagline is "One World. One Internet." But the dispute reflects how hard it is to squeeze opposing agendas into a single globe-spanning technology.

GTLD expansion plan
Under the generic top-level domain expansion plan, registrars would apply to operate new domains that could include generic terms such as .movie or .eco. Registrars would control the new domains and potentially sell others rights to register their names, much as Network Solutions sells rights to use .com today. ICANN plans to accept the first applications from January 12, 2012, to April 12, 2012, and ICANN could add the new domains to the Internet itself before the end of 2012.

It's not cheap to participate: ICANN charges registrars an $185,000 application fee and $25,000 a year to operate a new generic domain registry.

One company that's expressed an interest is camera and copier maker Canon; .canon e-mails and Web addresses bring an opportunity to reinforce the brand and provide some assurance to a customer that communications aren't with a fake entity.

But it's possible that a registrar could set up the .camera domain, at which point Canon might feel compelled to pay that registrar for canon.camera. There could be different reasons for that move: Consumers might try to load that Web address, or companies might want to ward off cybersquatters--those who register a brand name address in hopes of selling it at a premium to a trademark holder.

Another possible problem: the financial uncertainty of auctions to decide who gets to operate a particular domain registry. That's not the sort of problem Coca-Cola would have, but there are plenty of cases where companies in different industries have the same or similar names.

To deal with these potential problems, ICANN has established a trademark clearinghouse to track trademarks and a mechanism to unplug trademark-infringing domains.

"We've created a brand-new system to allow...a very rapid takedown" of a domain found to be infringing trademarks, outgoing ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush said in June. "The tradeoff is...if someone brings a case, it's got to be argued and proved to a pretty high standard."

Dissatisfied advertising groups
That's not enough to satisfy the advertising groups. ANA, which says its 400 members have 10,000 brands and spend more than $250 billion a year in advertising and marketing, launched the current round of objections with its August 4 letter. Chief Executive Robert Liodice said:

By introducing confusion into the marketplace and increasing the likelihood of cybersquatting and other malicious conduct, the Program diminishes the power of trademarks to serve as strong, accurate and reliable symbols of source and quality in the marketplace. Brand confusion, dilution, and other abuse also poses risks of cyberpredator harms, consumer privacy violations, identity theft, and cybersecurity breaches...

Brand owners are essentially being forced to buy their own brands from ICANN at an initial price of $185,000. For companies with robust trademark portfolios considering multiple TLDs, the application costs can be exorbitant because a separate application must be filed (and paid for) for each separate name. At the end of this name-selling application process, if there are two applicants seeking TLDs with confusingly similar strings, ICANN determines the winner by auction, at costs to brand owners that could be staggering.

Then, on Monday came the IAB's criticisms. Among other concerns, the group said the GTLD expansion will offer cybersquatters "an opportunity to harm a brand's integrity and/or profit greatly from their bad-faith domain registrations." IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg said:

ICANN's potentially momentous change seems to have been made in a top-down star chamber. There appears to have been no economic impact research, no full and open stakeholder discussions, and little concern for the delicate balance of the Internet ecosystem, This could be disastrous for the media brand owners we represent and the brand owners with which they work. We hope that ICANN will reconsider both this ill-considered decision and the process by which it was reached.

And 4A CEO Nancy Hill criticized the ICANN plan in these words:

"We are very disappointed in the position taken by ICANN concerning the assignment and sale of new domain names. These changes would cost brand owners billions of dollars, severely, if not irreparably, diluting the value of trusted and respected brand names, as well as abrogate the good work 4A's members have done on behalf of their clients.

All marketers share the goal of a stable global marketplace, served by an Internet system that consumers can rely on to accurately reflect the quality and history of a product or service. ICANN's actions would remove that trust and place consumers at a significant disadvantage in making marketplace choices and decisions.

ICANN appears willing to risk the advertising groups' wrath, though.

In its response to ANA, ICANN said the GTLD process has safeguards that eliminate the need for companies to apply for domains defensively, merely to protect trademarks rather than to actively use them with a new domain. It defended its process as very much bottom-up, taking into account abundant feedback.

And Beckstrom--who will leave his role at ICANN on July 1, 2012--said ICANN won't bow to the views of a single group, even if it's one as powerful as major advertisers.

"Please be advised that ICANN will vigorously defend the multi-stakeholder model and the hard-fought consensus of its global stakeholder participants, its duty to act in accordance with established bottom-up processes, and its responsibility to the broad public interest of the global Internet community, rather than to the specific interests of any particular group."

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Microsoft lists 'App Store' as a Windows 8 feature

An app store is officially among the features Microsoft is working to include in Windows 8, much like Apple's App Store for OS X.

The revelation, which confirmed months of rumors, came today from Microsoft President Steven Sinofsky in a Building Windows 8 blog titled "Introducing the team." Among a list of teams associated with building the forthcoming operating system was "App Store."

Sinofsky said that work on the new OS is organized by feature teams, of which there are about 35, each containing 25 to 40 developers.

"Many of the teams listed below describe features or areas that you are familiar with or that you can probably figure out based on the name," he said. "As we post more, team members will identify themselves as part of these teams."

Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Rumors that Microsoft was developing an app store for Windows have been around for more than a year. Based on a series of Windows 8 documents leaked June 2010, Microsoft has reportedly been eager to match Apple at its own game by offering its own dedicated app store.

An app store appeared in a demonstration of Windows 8 that Sinofsky gave at the All Things Digital D9 conference in late June. Included in the start-up menu tiles was a direct link to a Microsoft Store, suggesting that Microsoft was working it own version of an online application store, similar to Apple's App Store.

The company has also been working hard to keep Apple from winning a U.S. trademark for the phrase App Store. Microsoft argues the phrase is too generic to register and would restrict competitors' ability to use of the term to describe their own services.

Microsoft has not officially announced when the new OS would be released, but CEO Steve Ballmer said in May that the new OS would reach consumers in 2012, although the company later said Ballmer misspoke. In June, Vice President Dan'l Lewin hinted that Windows 8 would launch during the fall of 2012.

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Hackers break into BART police union Web site

Hackers have broken into a second Web site affiliated with the San Francisco Bay Area subway system, which has come under fire in the last week for turning off cell phone service before a planned protest.


A database belonging to the BART Police Officers Association was posted online today, complete with full names, e-mail addresses, home addresses, and passwords. BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit.





It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the embarrassing information leak--a Twitter account affiliated with Anonymous said that no one has "claimed responsibility for the hack," and speculated that it could be the work of either an ally or an adversary.

As of this afternoon, the BARTpoa.com Web site was offline. "These people are criminals and we're going to forward this information to the FBI," the BART union president, Jesse Sekhon, told the San Francisco Chronicle today. "These people need to be brought to justice. They can't be terrorizing people."

(Worth noting is the use of passwords that fail to meet general guidelines for creating strong passwords, such as: cowgirl, firefly, 69square, hawaii50, grover, jennifer, sfgiants, cowboytough, and BUFFY10.)


The intrusion follows a similar one on Sunday, when the amorphous Anonymous collective broke into the MyBART Web site, which allowed users to create accounts to receive discounts or special offers.

BART pulled the plug on cell service last Thursday in four subway stations in downtown San Francisco before a planned protest that was intended to call attention to the fatal shooting of an apparently homeless man named Charles Blair Hill.

Thursday's planned protest might have gone unnoticed outside the San Francisco metro area. But disabling underground cell service -- a move more associated with authoritarian regimes in the Middle East than supposedly progressive California cities -- captured the attention of Internet users around the country concerned with government overreach and civil liberties.

The Anonymous group of online activists began promoting what became known as "Operation BART," with one account announcing: "We are going to show BART (@SFBART) how to prevent a riot #OpBART." And the Federal Communications Commission said it was reviewing the legality of BART's move.

A second protest happened on Monday, prompting BART to close at least four San Francisco subway stations during the evening rush hour.

The ACLU of Northern California said in a blog post last week that: "Shutting down access to mobile phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it's halfway around the world or right here in San Francisco. You have the right to speak out. Both the California Constitution and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protect your right to free expression."

An archived version of the BARTpoa.com Web site says the union boasts about 230 members. Its purpose is to "enhance wages, benefits and working conditions" of BART police officers.

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Verizon may suspend health benefits for strikers

Verizon Communications plans to suspend health-insurance coverage and medical benefits for any worker still on strike, applying further pressure on employees who have been off the job for more than a week.

It's the latest escalation in a contract dispute between telecommunications workers facing competitive pressure on its legacy landline business and workers who don't want their benefits stripped away. The disagreement over benefits has caused 45,000 employees in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions to walk off the job on August 7, and has resulted in accusations of violence, illegal interference, and legal action.

The latest move will test the mettle of the workers, who have been without pay since the strike began. The loss of health benefits is an option that companies have when their workers go on strike. While the talks continue, neither side has reported any progress.

Verizon confirmed that the letters were sent out. Representative Robert Varettoni said the notices were sent as early as possible so workers could make the necessary alternative arrangements. He added the rules of how the benefits can be suspended are laid out in the contract.
"This is not a surprise to the unions," he said.

The news of Verizon's threat to strip the benefits away was first reported by Dow Jones Newswires.

The unions representing the workers, the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, have issued advice on how to keep their medical benefits going. The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) requires group health plans to offer striking workers and covered dependents the opportunity to continue health coverage for up to 18 months by paying for the coverage out of their own pocket. COBRA gives workers up to 60 days to decide if they want to continue coverage, it and gives them another 45 days to pay the premium.

Strikers also have the option to pay for their core medical benefits, or choose to pay just for themselves or their dependents.
The CWA said it would make available the Robert Lilja Members Relief Fund for workers who need assistance paying for their health care needs. In the meantime, it said it is readying a petition to be sent to Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam, urging him to "get serious about bargaining and stop trying to push Verizon workers out of the middle class."

The union said the petition has more than 100,000 signatures. CWA representative Candice Johnson said the petition has spurred many groups into action.

The strike has gotten uglier, with Verizon taking legal action to stop workers from blocking the entrances to facilities, and harassing management and replacement workers sent in to man the facilities. It has injunctions in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, as well as a temporary restraining order in Massachusetts, where an injunction is pending.

Johnson said the CWA doesn't condone any illegal action.
Increasingly, union workers are organizing their protests through Facebook.

The workers are striking because of what it feels are unfair concessions to its contract. Verizon wants freeze pensions, tie pay to compensation, make it easier to fire workers, and require employees to contribute to their own health benefits. Executives have said the cuts are necessary for the landline business to remain competitive with that of the cable operators, who don't have union workers.

The unions have dismissed the calls for changes in the contract, and they note that Verizon remains a highly profitable company.

Much of the profits, however, are generated from the wireless business, which has nearly no union workers. The wireline business posted a 0.3 percent decline in revenue in the second quarter, compared with a 2.2 percent decline in the first quarter. One growth area, however, has been its Fios bundle of Internet, phone, and television service. But Verizon said the costs to run the business are higher because of the need to strike content deals.

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Facebook: Ceglia contract an "outright fabrication"

Facebook says its inspection of a computer belonging to a man who claims to have a contract that entitles him to half-ownership of the social-networking giant has turned up an "authentic contract" that does not mention Facebook.

Forensic analysis proves that the alleged 2003 contract between Paul Ceglia and Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was an "outright fabrication," Facebook said, asking that Ceglia's suit against Zuckerberg and Facebook be dismissed, according to a Facebook filing yesterday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.
The contract, which Facebook contends Ceglia was trying to conceal, was found embedded in electronic data from 2004 and refers only to StreetFax, a Web site Ceglia was trying to develop, Facebook said.
Facebook lawyers also complained that Ceglia had refused to supply documents covered by a discovery order in June and was "willfully concealing" six USB drives that contain relevant documents related to possible manipulation of the original contract.

"It is very likely that Ceglia used these removable devices to manipulate and store documents, including the purported Facebook contract, in the belief that this evidence would not be discovered or that the devices could easily be discarded if necessary, as Ceglia has now apparently done," Facebook lawyers said in their filing. "This is the digital equivalent of throwing critical evidence into Lake Erie."

Ceglia has reportedly relocated his family to Ireland as a result of the attention the case has attracted and could not be reached for comment. San Diego-based law firm Lake, which represents Ceglia in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, attorney Jeffrey Lake acknowledged in a filing with the court today that the StreetFax contract differs from the one previously admitted as evidence in the case but said his client has an explanation for why the two contracts differ. Lake did not indicate what that explanation might be.

Ceglia claimed in a lawsuit filed last year against Facebook and its CEO and Zuckerberg that Zuckerberg entered into a contract with Ceglia in 2003 to design and develop the Web site that would ultimately become Facebook--a company now with an estimated value of more than $70 billion.

Ceglia has said he hired Zuckerberg through a Craigslist ad to write code for a project called StreetFax and paid Zuckerberg $1,000 for coding work; he also allegedly invested $1,000 in Zuckerberg's The Face Book project, which gave him a 50 percent interest in the company, as well as an additional 1 percent interest for every day after January 1, 2004, that The Face Book was delayed.

Zuckerberg and Facebook, which had previously called the alleged Facebook contract a "cut-and-paste job," filed a discovery motion in June for the original contract, e-mails in native form, and inspection of all computers in Ceglia's possession, as well as those in his parents' house.

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Five possible responses to the Google-Motorola merger

There's no question that the mobile market was turned on its head yesterday when Google announced its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola.

So what's it mean for the rest of the industry? Typically, industry consolidation begets more consolidation. CNET offers five predictions for how this mega-merger may affect other players in the mobile market from highlighting the potential alliances that might form to the companies that may be possible acquisition targets.

1. Microsoft keeps close partnership with Nokia but adds closer ties to Asian handset makers: Samsung, HTC, and LG Electronics

Since Google's plan to buy Motorola was announced, pundits have been speculating on what Microsoft's next move might be. As a sort of knee-jerk reaction, people have wondered if Microsoft might take its relationship with Nokia to the next level.
It is certainly possible that this could happen. After all, not many people expected Google to buy Motorola just a couple of days ago. But most Microsoft watchers are skeptical that Microsoft would actually buy Nokia outright.

Here's why: Microsoft can benefit from its existing relationship with Nokia without having to buy the whole company.
One of the potential benefits of Google buying Motorola is that it could follow Apple's model and build devices that are tightly integrated with its Android operating system. Some people argue that this control translates into a better experience for end users on these Android devices. Microsoft, has a similar model to Google in that it currently licenses its software to several manufacturers. So some have suggested that Microsoft may want to follow the Apple model, too.

But that's unlikely because Microsoft already tightly controls the specifications for the devices on which its Windows Phone software operates. So Microsoft already ensures a more consistent look and feel to the user experience on Windows Phone devices.
The main reason that Google is buying Motorola is for its 24,500 patents. Microsoft may also want to own Nokia's mobile phone patents to bulk up its war chest of patents. But again this isn't necessary, given that the two company's have cross-licensing arrangements already.
And finally, Microsoft may have a disincentive to buy Nokia because it may want to cozy up with some of Googe's tight Android partners, such as Samsung, LG Electronics and HTC. These companies, which have been relying on Android, may now feel threatened and may be looking to diversify their product lines to ensure they aren't too dependent on Google.

2. Amazon and Hewlett-Packard team up via WebOS

Google, Apple, and Amazon have increasingly become competitors in the wider online world. Each of these companies now offers cloud-based content, and they're vying for consumer loyalty to their services. Devices such as Apple's iPhone and iPad and Google's Android devices provide that link to the cloud the services. And as portable devices, such as smartphones and tablets replace desktop and laptop computers, the battle for consumers hearts and minds will be fought in the mobile market.

While Amazon and Google are rivals when it comes to cloud services, they are also budding partners. Amazon is rumored to be developing tablets using the Google Android platform. But Google's purchase of Motorola may threaten this relationship with Amazon. And as a result, force Amazon to look for an alternative to Android.

Hewlett-Packard could be the perfect partner, according to ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow. HP, which bought Palm for its WebOS mobile operating system, hasn't seen much success with its first tablet, the TouchPad. But the WebOS software has actually won a lot of praise from experts. Perlow thinks that HP should cut a deal with Amazon.

He said that HP could continue to advance the WebOS technology, while leveraging Amazon's sales and distribution network for the tablets and phones that use the operating system. But more importantly, Amazon could provide the cloud services and content for the WebOS devices, including books, video, music, storage, and e-books. Currently, one of WebOS's biggest problems is that it doesn't have any content relative to Apple and Google.

On the hardware side, Amazon already has lots of experience partnering with Asian device makers for its Kindle e-readers.

Amazon could serve as the primary brand for the WebOS devices, giving HP much-needed marketing and distribution for its products. It could be a win-win for each company. But Perlow points out that this also means that Amazon would have to abandon or curtail its existing strategy for its Amazon Appstore for Android and its plans to build Android tablets.

3. Research In Motion becomes an attractive acquisition target, but who's buying?

Once worth $83 billion at its peak, RIM has lost about 80 percent of its value over the past three years as Apple and Google have eaten into its smartphone business. The company has fallen from the No. 2 position in terms of smartphone operating systems worldwide to the No. 4 spot as of the second quarter of 2011.

The company has plans to release seven new BlackBerry 7 handsets starting this summer, which may offer a slight boost to sales in the ultra competitive smartphone market. But the turn-around is likely to be a long one for the company, which is struggling to regain its footing.
Still, RIM owns some 10,000 to 15,000 patents that cover advanced wireless technology, security, enterprise mobility, and software. And of these patents more than 3,000 are specific to mobile technology. According to MDB PatentVest, RIM has more mobile device patents than anyone else.
Based on the recent jockeying for patents, it's clear that Apple, Microsoft, Google, and others see patents related to mobile technology as valuable and important. And given RIM's strong patent portfolio plus its low share price, it could be attractive to potential suitors, even though its current product line-up is in transition.

But who would be interested? That's the big question. Microsoft had been a rumored suitor, but as noted above, the company may not be interested in being saddled with a hardware provider at this time.

HP, which bought Palm for its WebOS, could be another candidate, or perhaps one of the other hardware companies, such as Samsung, may be interested.
RIM's other option may be to spin off its patent portfolio into a separate patent-holding company that licenses the patents to other companies. It's unclear what will happen, but RIM's outlook now may be better than it was last week.

4. Sony Ericsson may feel pressure to monetize its patents.

Sony Ericsson, a relative small player in the overall smartphone market, may also look for ways to extract some value from its patent holdings. Sony Ericsson, formed in 2001, is owned in a 50-50 partnership between Sony of Japan and Ericsson of Sweden. Together its parent companies own 1,470 patents specific to mobile devices.

In recent years, the company, which has always been a bit of niche player, has struggled to keep up with rivals. And it's continued to lose market share, despite shifting from the Symbian mobile platform to Android.

In the second quarter of 2011, Sony Ericsson's total mobile device market share fell to 1.7 percent from 3 percent a year ago, according to Gartner. Chinese manufacturer Huawei bumped it from the No. 9 spot. And Sony Ericsson is now in the No. 10 spot in terms of worldwide device sales.

As a result of its poor performance, investors may pressure the company to do something with these patents.

5. Apple (or someone else) could spend a whole lot of dough on the Kodak imaging patents.

It's clear that battle being fought in the mobile market right now is over patents. My CNET colleague Jay Greene recently wrote in a piece that the next big portfolio of patents to go up for sale will likely come from Kodak. Last month, the imaging company said it was considering selling about 1,100 patents that cover capturing, storing, organizing, and sharing digital images. These patents cover technology that is increasingly becoming important in mobile devices.

And one particular patent that is likely to be included in the batch that Kodak plans to sell may be end up starting one of the most ferocious bidding wars to date for mobile patents. The patent in question covers image previewing technology that Kodak alleges is being infringed upon by Apple and Research In Motion.

This patent in particular is considered very valuable because there is still so much uncertainty surrounding the validity of the claim. The case has been batted around the legal system, and it's still being reviewed by an administrative law judge.

Even though its unclear whether Apple or RIM is infringing on the Kodak imaging patent, Apple will likely bid on this patent simply to keep it out of the hands of its rivals, namely Google.
"If you're Apple, are you going to let Google buy those patents? No way," Christopher A. Marlett, chief executive of MDB Capital Group, an investment banking firm that focuses on intellectual property, told CNET for a previous story.

There is a good chance that the bidding on these patents could go very high. Indeed, the value of mobile and communications related patents has already been high. According to recent estimates by Sanford Bernstein, Google's $12.5 billion bid for Motorola will give it access to about 24,500 patents at a price of about $350,000 per patent. Meanwhile, Apple, RIM, Microsoft and other players, paid a total of $4.5 billion for the Nortel Networks patents. This works out to about $750,000 per patent.

With $76 billion in cash and marketable securities as of the end of June, Apple is certainly in a strong position to pay what it must to secure whatever intellectual property it needs.

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