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Most of the companies being sued over mobile patents are bigger than Google.


Err, no.

Apple is bigger than Google, but the others are all smaller, generally considerably so.

Samsung probably gets close, but I can't work out the valuation of the whole Samsung corporation. If I'm understanding the company structure correctly the Samsung Electronics subsidiary is valued at $19B [1], vs $185B for Google. Nokia is $31B.

Edit: Unless you meant bigger on the linked graphic? In that case, yes, you are right. But that only indicates revenue (from mobile, in early 2010), not profits or valuation.

[1] http://www.google.com/finance?q=SEO%3A005930


Another measure would be number of employees. Google has 24k. Bigger on the linked graphic are Oracle (105k), Nokia (132k), Hitachi (360k), Sharp (64k), LG (177k), Apple (49k), Samsung (276k), and Motorola (60k).

Another measure would be total assets. Google has $58 billion. Oracle has $60 billion. Hitachi has $95 billion. Nokia has $57 billion. Apple has $75 billion. Samsung has $294 billion. Microsoft has $86 billion.

I would consider total assets to be a better measure than market cap when it comes to determining whether the company is larger or smaller in the context of a lawsuit.


The total assets point is good, and would play well to a jury. But to be fair, total liabilities should be deducted. Samsung, for example has over $180B in liabilities (presumably those valuable electronics fabs are debt-financed)


To be honest, the assets, revenue or the total employees of a company don't really matter in this case.

Google is a relative new comer to the mobile space. All the other companies have been entrenched for a long time and have a much bigger patent portfolio compared to Google.




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