
They may not try hard for patents
But by Gad, do they ever understand how the US work.
Google now has 18 lobbying firms on its books, after it hired 12 more companies late last week to help fight a recent antitrust investigation kicked off by the US Federal Trade Commission. A Mountain View spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday that it had "a strong story to tell about our business" and said Google had "sought the …
So far I see *nothing* tying this to the FTC probe other than journalists' assertions.
To me, it seems much more likely to be tied to the Nortel auction (and Google's general position in the patent wars). That's something lobbyists will be able to help.
(I'd love it if Google chose to "invest" 3.14 billion on getting software patents abolished and fixing other problems in the patent system...)