The reasoning here was that if they didn't patent it, some other bad actor / patent troll would, and that would cause far more problems. Google so far has a record of never using a patently offensively, and only time will tell if this will keep holding true.
Google also has a giant shared patent pool that they let other companies use to defend themselves, so this is part of that, alongside the article I shared.
Google also has a giant shared patent pool that they let other companies use to defend themselves, so this is part of that, alongside the article I shared.