Google buys communications-related patents from key Apple supplier Foxconn

Foxconn, best known for manufacturing Apple products, says that it has sold display patents to Google for an undisclosed sum. Details are vague, with the briefest of statements quoted in the WSJ stating only that they were related to “communications technology.”

Foxconn has been seeking to reduce its dependence on Apple, which provides around 40 percent of its business, with its own product lines. Patent sales provide a further form of diversification for the company, which says that it has been granted more than 64,000 patents to date, and applied for a similar number again.