Apple and Google may be in a bidding war over InterDigital patents

Thanks to the patent system, the tech market is looking more like Parker Brothers' "Monopoly" game every day. According to Bloomberg, Apple and Google are two of the companies reportedly interested in purchasing mobile tech designer InterDigital for its 1,300 patents related to information transfer.

Google recently lost a bid for Nortel's patent portfolio, a bid that Apple, Microsoft, and other companies won. InterDigital's patents are supposedly "deeper and stronger" than Nortel's, however, which makes it a keen target for the major players in the mobile industry.

It's kind of sad that we've reached the point where every time a tech company passes "Go" in Silicon Valley, they have to sweat over landing on someone's patented hotel space and cough up billions of dollars if they want to keep playing. Since that's apparently how the game is played these days, though, it'll be interesting to see who winds up with InterDigital's US$3.1 billion portfolio after the bidding is over.