Back on August 9, the Google Public Policy Blog announced A joint policy proposal for an open Internet, co-authored by Google’s Alan Davidson, and Verizon Executive VP Tom Tauke. It was a little surprising seeing Google and Verizon join together to compromise about Net Neutrality.

The proposal from the two companies set two different sets of rules when it comes to broadband access and mobile access to the Web.

Earlier today, The FCC adopted a set of regulations regarding Net Neutrality, and the policy proposal from Google and Verizon seems to have played a part in how the new regulations will work. The regulation of Net Neutrality is a topic worth expanding upon, but I was more curious at this point about the relationship between Google and Verizon.

I’m not sure what role the following might have played in Google’s stance on Net Neutrality, but I found it pretty interesting. Yesterday, I wrote about how Google had acquired a number of phone related patents from Myriad Group. On November 8, 2010, the US Patent and Trademark office recorded the assignment of 84 granted and pending patent applications from Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc, to Google.

I’m not going to go into a detailed examination of each of the pending and granted patents – with 84 of them, that would be somewhat overwhelming. But they do cover a wide range of services and methods that a phone company might use to offer services to the public.

With the dramatic increase of people connecting to the web via phones, it makes sense that Google would begin to focus more on the mobile web.

What do you think?

Patent Applications

Granted Patents