There are two basic general reasons that a person who would otherwise be willing to sell to an NPE might be interested in selling to Google instead:
1. Google will pay more, and/or
2. Google provides a quicker, easier process for evaluation and decision that means you close the deal and get actual certainty (and the money itself) more quickly and with less of your own time and energy devoted to the process.
Google's effort to established a streamlined process with a "identify your patent and price at which you are committed to sell" up front step, and a well defined set of steps with fairly short time windows leading to a final decision, attempts to address both of those. (Provide a smooth decision process on purchase at the seller's desired price.)
> In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll.
No, you've got that wrong: that's not the benefit to the seller. That's one of the benefits to Google (and, presuming Google doesn't use patents like a troll, potentially everyone else in the tech industry and everyone indirectly harmed by the drag patent trolls put on the technology market.)
Saw this this morning discussing how Google bought Motorola and is now demanding more royalties for "standard-essential patents", after selling off Motorola (and keeping their patents to use in lawsuits like this): https://twitter.com/FioraAeterna/status/592775596712849408
I don't follow this super closely and so can't say if the claim is 100% true, but it sure was interesting to read about.
Essential patent is a loaded term. I argue all non-trivial patents are essential. If a software patent isn't standard-essential (I'd argue standard is yet another loaded term because FAT32 is a de facto standard for interoperability) it should not be a patent at all. I think you'll agree.
That's not what their FAQ[1] says: "Any patents purchased by Google through this program will join our portfolio and can be used by Google in all the normal ways that patents can be used."
[1] http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/...
In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll. They may end up using your patent, or they may not, but they are promising that they will not use the slimy tactics associated with patent trolls.
But the thing about patent trolls is that they're looking for a very specific type of patent: an overly broad one that probably should not have been issued in the first place.
If you don't have that kind of patent, but you do have a patent that is clearly valuable otherwise, then the pool of potential buyers probably won't include patent trolls, so the purported benefit of selling to Google (avoiding selling to patent trolls) is moot.
In which case, you might end up getting a good price from Google (the price you yourself set), or you might end up getting a better price from some other buyer.
But the nice thing about this promotion is that, assuming you're confident there are other buyers out there, you can set your price a little bit higher than you think it's worth and see if Google is willing to bite. If not, go sell it elsewhere.