Google's Eric Schmidt: We're Innovative While Apple Is A Patent Troll

Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who is currently on tour in Asia where he announced the company's Nexus 7 tablet in Tokyo recently, had some time to talk about Google's relationship with Apple. Schmidt mentioned that while Apple and Google are very good friends, he doesn't agree with patent wars and feels that they prevent innovation.

This really is no surprise coming from Schmidt, but he went on and discussed Apple's recent victory over Samsung and how the company attempts to block competing Android phones with their patents. He also mentions that there are around "200,000 patents" that overlap with one another in the mobile industry, and Schmidt says they shouldn't be used to stop the sale of another company's devices.

"Literally patent wars prevent choice, prevent innovation and I think that is very bad. We are obviously working through that and trying to make sure we stay on the right side of these issues. So ultimately Google stands for innovation as opposed to patent wars," ...

"I think one of the worst things that happened in the last few years has been the belief that somehow there are so many patents in the mobile phone world, an estimated 200,000 patent that are overlapping and complicated and so forth, that one vendor can stop the sale of another vendor's phones or devices."

Samsung could possibly see a large number of its Galaxy devices banned in the US due to Apple's victory over the South Korean company in court, which will have Samsung pay $1 billion on top of the possible device ban. The Galaxy Tab has already seen a ban in Europe, which forces Samsung to modify the tablet's design and release a different model in Germany.

[via 9to5Mac]