Google Inc. acquired a number of patents this month from International Business Machines Corp. in an effort to boost its portfolio amid growing threats of intellectual property lawsuits, Bloomberg reported.

Google, which in 2008 entered the smartphone market with the release of its Android mobile operating system, has been the target of at least six legal complaints related to the Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s free open-source program that depends on some nonproprietary features that Google didn’t create. The program also allows unrelated developers to modify the program’s code.

“Like many tech companies, at times we’ll acquire patents that are relevant to our business,” Google said Thursday in an email.

Calling on Congress and the Federal Trade Commission to rein in lawsuits, Google, which operates the world’s largest search engine, has few patents of its own. In addition to a growing need to defend itself against litigation, Google also hopes to curtail abuses of the patent system, Bloomberg said.

The company is asking the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to take closer looks at patents being used in litigation.

“The tech industry has a significant problem,” Google General Counsel Kent Walker told Bloomberg this week. “Software patents are kind of gumming up the works of innovation.”