Here are all the patent cases in which Google was a plaintiff. They appear to all be declaratory judgments against NPE defendants.

4:2004-cv-04922 Google Inc. v. Skyline Software Systems Inc. 5:2005-md-01654 In re Compression Labs, Inc., Patent Litigation 5:2004-cv-03934 Google Inc. v. Compression Labs Inc et al 4:2008-cv-04144 Google Inc. v. Netlist, Inc. 3:2009-cv-00642 Google Inc. v. Traffic Information LLC 1:2011-cv-00175 Microsoft Corporation et al v. GeoTag Inc. 1:2011-cv-00637 Google Inc. v. Sourceprose, Inc. 4:2009-cv-01243 Google, Inc. v. EMSAT Advanced Geo-Location Technology, LLC et al

There is a difference between being a plaintiff in a patent case and using patents offensively. In the Skyline case, it looks like Skyline sued Google over Google Earth: http://googlecopyright.blogspot.com/2007/03/google-prevails-...

Sidebar question: how did you find these? I'm researching a related topic and need to perform bulk searches for patent related litigation data. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

That makes no sense. How can you sue a non-practicing entity for infringing your patents? If they're non-practicing, they're not doing anything.

Being a plaintiff doesn't always mean you're the one suing. It could be an appeals court case where the positions are reversed. Also, you could sue an NPE in order to invalidate their patent(s), or to seek an injunction.

But what if Google had won the bid and was using these patents (they hadn't developed) defensively to defend against the fact they have violated patents developed by others companies, would it more fair? I don't think so.

No, but you can play "what if" games to death. You can't be slighted as being hypocritical for something you haven't done yet, which is what Gruber is claiming.

Complaining about huge bids that are more than what these bogus patents are worth is pretty hypocritical if you yourself bid over $3 billion for them.

I think Google is whining because they didn't win, and they know communities like this are anti-patent and will automatically side with them if they portray it a certain way. It's hypocritical to complain about the patent system and that competitors won patents you also wanted and were bidding on.

Sure, maybe it'd be unfair (in your view). However, Gruber paints it as hypocritical, which it's not. Google's actions (and the blog post under review) reflect a cohesive ideology: software patents are bunk.

The problem is, everybody infringes countless software patents because the system is broken. What matters is how you play the game from that starting point. Google wants to be able to defend itself, while others seem to want to gang up on Google and attack it.

then it would be hypocrisy. but they didn't. so its not hypocrisy.

So what? Google is a relatively new company. To say they would spend all that money on patents and then not attempt to enforce them is very naive.

Sun Microsystems did exactly what you are saying, and Google has gone on record, multiple times, saying it would do exactly what you are saying.

It is not without precedent at all.

Did the soviet union ever used their nukes offensively?