Wed Aug 3, 2011 9:48pm EDT
"Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other's throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what's going on," Drummond wrote in a blog post.
He referred to "a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents."
Microsoft and Apple had teamed up to acquire patents previously owned by software maker Novell and bankrupt telecom firm Nortel Networks Corp. to ensure "Google didn't get them," Drummond added.
But Microsoft's General Counsel Brad Smith disputed Drummond's version on the Novell patent issue on Twitter.
"Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no," Smith tweeted in response to the blog.
Representatives from Apple and Oracle declined comment.
Google -- which is facing a federal antitrust probe in the Internet search market it dominates -- is forging ahead in the smartphone market. But it has been hampered by a lack of intellectual property in wireless telephony, which has exposed it to patent-infringement lawsuits from rivals like Oracle.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/04/google-idUSN1E77221R20110804
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