Well my guess is that Groupon is appealing because it is purely an advertising platform, while Sun was a big company with lots of different products. Java was o

Well my guess is that Groupon is appealing because it is purely an advertising platform, while Sun was a big company with lots of different products. Java was one of them, and while it would have been great in hindsight for Google to take control of the Java related patents, they would have also had to deal with all of Sun's other products (including hardware) which would not have been so appealing. What would Google have done with Sun's hardware business? Shut it down? Gone into the hardware business themselves? Groupon is pie in the sky sort of stuff and thus easier to acquire logistically speaking.