<p>Beijing time on February 14, according to foreign media reports, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday that it approved Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Through this deal, Google can further expand the number of mobile phone technology patents, strengthen the competition with Apple.</p><p><br/></p><p>By acquiring Motorola Mobility, Google will be able to obtain more than 17,000 patents. According to statistics from Bloomberg, this is also the largest merger and acquisition transaction in the wireless equipment industry in the past decade. The U.S. Justice Department said on Monday that Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility would not hurt competition in the mobile phone industry. Google has previously said that the company's motive for acquiring Motorola Mobility was to strengthen its defenses against patent lawsuits.</p><p><br/></p><p>Mobile Device Industry</p><p><br/></p><p>Motorola Mobility's patents include some essential patented technologies in the mobile device industry, such as location services, antenna design and touch screen technology. The U.S. Justice Department on Monday also approved a $4.5 billion acquisition of Nortel's patent assets by a consortium of technology companies including Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony, Ericsson, and EMC. This comes after U.S. Justice Department investigators have investigated whether the tech companies plan to use Nortel's patents to unfairly treat phones powered by Google's Android operating system. So far, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice has not commented on the report. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice approved Apple's acquisition of some of Novell's patents.</p><p><br/></p><p>The U.S. Justice Department also said on Monday that its investigation of patent acquisitions found that patent holders were increasingly resorting to legal acquisitions to prevent other companies from using key smartphone patents. The Justice Department said it will continue to monitor future moves by companies such as Google.</p><p><br/></p><p>Earlier on Monday, the European Commission unconditionally approved Google's plan to buy Motorola Mobility. But the European Commission also said it would monitor the use of Motorola Mobility patents by Google and its rivals to ensure compliance with EU antitrust rules. The European Commission said the deal would not cause significant changes to the operating system and the patent market. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement on Monday: “We have approved the acquisition. On the basis of careful investigation, we have determined that the transaction itself will not give rise to competition in the market. cause problems.”</p><p><br/></p>