A few days ago my friend Malte pointed out a patent story to me about smartphone patents. Before I got to read the story though there was a twist added by the Editor.
The story is about the current bidding for Kodaks patent portfolio. The author – David Balto – is very upset by Apple and Microsoft teaming up with Intellectual Ventures (evil patent troll) bidding for the Kodak Treasure trove.
The article is a general defense of Google and the rest of the android phone producers, and does not have mild words for Microsoft or Apple.
Here comes the twist. After publishing the Editor at Gigaom.com had to put in a note saying that even though they asked the author if he had any affiliation with Google and he claimed not, they had discovered that he in fact had been working for them.
So the question is whether David Balto forgot his work for Google, didn’t think it was that important or was asked by Google to do a piece against Microsoft and Apple. To his credit it has to be said that Balto as far I can see never have written positively about Microsoft – so maybe its ideological