Patent trolls, in case you haven’t heard of them yet, are companies that don’t really do anything other than take other companies to court. SimpleAir is one of these trolls, and they just won a case against Google. There will be a second case to determine how much money Google should give SimpleAir, with SimpleAir claiming that they deserve at least $125 million. Note that SimpleAir pulled this exact same stunt on Apple two years ago, and Apple lost.

What patent caused Google to lose? Something that has to do with how push notifications work. I’m pretty sure push notifications have existed long before SimpleAir was even founded, but it doesn’t matter, because they own the piece of paper that says they were the originators of the idea.

Does this mean Samsung, HTC, Sony, and every other company that makes Android phones are in danger of being sued? Sadly, yes, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Samsung become SimpleAir’s next target. The American government has repeatedly said they’re going to do something about patent trolls, but so far they’ve done absolutely nothing.

How will this court case affect you? It won’t. Google is probably going to sign a check big enough that they’ll never have to deal with SimpleAir again. That check will be the equivalent of less than one percent of the money they have in the bank.