He's trying to say that Google paid something tangible for something intangible. It's difficult to estimate the present value of a patent portfolio, ergo it's "intangible".
From that article: "Which again leads to the question: why did Google buy Motorola? The real answer is worth $12.5 billion."
I love how people keep trotting this number out. Nevermind the fact that Moto had $3 billion in cash[1], which immediately became Google's cash when the purchase went through, so the real price was closer to 9.5 billion. Motorola also had 24,500 patents in its portfolio[2]. Apple, MS, and RIM paid 4.5 billion for 6,000 Nortel patents not long before the Moto sale.
Do you have any data on the quality of the patents? I thought the Motorola ones were mostly standards-essential and were a "second tranche" after the cream of the crop was previously sold off. But I can't find a good reference that I believe...
It's anyone's guess. How do we know how many patent suits were avoided because Google had a new arsenal to fight back with? How many new patents have Moto engineers filed since the purchase? How do we put a dollar value on the hardware expertise that Google picked up in the purchase?
