By JOHN LETZING
Google Inc. said Saturday that Chinese antitrust authorities have cleared the Internet giant's proposed purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., pushing the $12.5 billion deal over its last regulatory hurdle.
Google, a Silicon Valley giant that built its business on Web services, startled the tech industry last August by saying it would buy the company, a much older, Illinois-based maker of mobile devices and other hardware.
Motorola already produces a number of phones and tablets based on Google's Android mobile software.
Antitrust authorities in the U.S. and Europe have already given their blessing to the merger. Chinese authorities cleared the deal with one condition: That Google keep Android free and available to other device makers for five years.
"Our stance since we agreed to acquire Motorola has not changed and we look forward to closing the deal," a Google spokeswoman said in a statement.
The purchase now is expected to close within the next week.
Google developed Android using an open-source model, which allows programmers outside the company to view the products underlying code and make modifications. The Mountain View, Calif., company makes the software available free to makers of phones and tablets, though Google does seek to earn revenue from related mobile advertising and software apps. Android gives Google significant leverage in the mobile industry.
Google, which declared when the deal was announced that the purchase "will help supercharge Android," was attracted in part by Motorola's large trove of wireless patents, shaped by a legacy of its inventions in radio that began before World War II. Google and its partners have tried to protect Android from patent-infringement lawsuits filed by a number of rivals, with countersuits one of the most common tactics.
A trial is currently under way in San Francisco over Oracle Corp.'s allegations that Android infringes copyrights and patents that protect Oracle's Java technology.
When the U.S. Justice Department and European Commission cleared Google's purchase of Motorola in February, they expressed concerns related to patents.
Both regulators said they would continue to monitor Google's treatment of Motorola's so-called "standards essential" patents, which are regarded as key for the broader wireless industry.
Google's plan to purchase Motorola has raised some concern about whether the companyâ€"-once it owned a single device makerâ€"would give Motorola unfair advantages over other companies that also makes devices based on Android.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google has addressed some of those concerns by planning to give multiple device makers early access to new versions of Android, lending them the same privileges with the software as Motorola would enjoy.
Other significant questions about the Motorola deal have come from Wall Street. Some analysts have raised concerns about how an Internet company with relatively high margins will absorb a hardware firm with significantly lower margins.
Google has stressed that it will report Motorola's financial results separately from its own after the acquisition.
Write to John Letzing at john.letzing@dowjones.com
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