Google Said Near Settlement With FTC Over Patents Case

Google Inc. is close to settling allegations by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it violated antitrust law by trying to block access to key smartphone-technology covered by patents it owns, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The FTC will probably announce this week it has reached a consent decree that would limit Google’s ability to seek injunctions against competitors’ products that rely on so-called standard essential patents, said the people, who asked not to be named because terms of the settlement aren’t final. The decree would stop short of a complete ban on Google seeking injunctions against use of its patents where the company has agreed to license the technology on “fair and reasonable terms,” the people said.