Chutzpah: Google also wants 2.25% of every iPhone sale

In a letter to the IEEE -- the nonprofit organization that sets technical standards for everything from AC/DC converters to Wi-Fi networks – Google states that when it is through buying Motorola (MOT) and its 17,000 patents, it is prepared to ask for the same "maximum per-unit royalty of 2.25%" that Motorola is demanding of Apple for every iPhone sale.

Apple has complained in European courts that Motorola's demand is unfair, unreasonable and totally discriminatory. To outsiders, 2.25% may not seem like a lot, but consider this: The online database maintained by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute lists 4,956 standards covering 117,964 patents filed by 175 companies. If each of them demanded 2.25% every time a competitor tried to build a compatible device, the industry would grind to a halt. One can only imagine what Steve Jobs would say to Google's latest gambit. The proprietary technology he felt Google had "stolen" (his word) from Apple to build Android was original work, and not something Apple had asked to be made an industry standard. To try to create an equivalence with so-called essential patents -- at least one of which dates back to the age of the pager -- that Motorola promised at the time to share fairly with all comers may be the modern definition of chutzpah.