Google done paying Valley's legal bills?

So says Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann:

For most of the decade, Silicon Valley technology startups have assumed that Google would pay their legal bills. Not literally, mind you, but rather by taking on the big, high-profile cases about fair use, interoperability, and other digital intellectual property issues that would set precedents that all disruptive innovators could rely on.

Well, Google just put the Valley on notice that the free ride is over, which means more legal burdens for smaller technology companies that previously depended on Google clearing a path for them.

Instead, von Lohmann argues, Google is adopting a strategy designed to clear a path for Google and only Google.