The Federal Trade Commission has issued a civil investigative demand, akin to a subpoena, to Google over its use of recently-acquired Motorola mobile device patents, Bloomberg reported Friday. Google completed its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorla in May after winning approval from the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission.
The FTC is attempting to find out if Google violated U.S. antitrust law by continuing patent litigation to block mobile device competitors like Apple and Microsoft, both of whch the FTC is also reportedly reaching out to for infofmation. Google acknowledged in June 2011 that the FTC had launched an antitrust investigation into the company over its dominant position in search and its mobile ambitions.
