Motorola Sues Apple 176
rexjoec writes "Just a week after Motorola Inc. (MOT) itself became the target of legal action by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), it sued Apple Inc. (AAPL) for the alleged infringement of 18 of its patents. Motorola subsidiary, Motorola Mobility Inc. also filed patent suits against Apple in federal court in Illinois and Florida."
No matter who loses, the lawyers win (Score:5, Informative)
A diagram in the Guardian from last week [guim.co.uk] nicely illustrates the insanity that is the mobile phone litigation business. With the vortex of lawsuits surrounding both hardware and software, it's amazing that anybody is able to innovate at all.
Patent wars (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty hard to keep the graph [nytimes.com] up-to-date.
Oodles of phone lawsuits (Score:3, Informative)
Regarding the unfolding mess, here's what info I've gathered:
And if someone wants to get an article started on this new lawsuit, go ahead:
Motorola_v._Apple_(2010,_USA) [swpat.org]
Re:Sustainable? (Score:5, Informative)
It seems like every mobile company has patents that every other mobile company is either stepping on or tiptoeing around
Nope, most companies have cross-licensing agreements. Apple is in trouble because they didn't bother to set these up when they entered the market. Nokia fired first and now everyone else in the same position has decided that they can get some money from Apple, or force them out of the market.
Freescale != Motorola (Score:3, Informative)
The transition from Motorola to Intel processors decided in 2005 by Apple
...happened after Motorola had already spun off its semiconductor division as Freescale in 2004.
Re:No matter who loses, the lawyers win (Score:3, Informative)
It's way, way more tangled than the Guardian picture would lead you to believe
(Disclaimer - I help develop and support software that controls hardware made by pretty much all those companies, but my opinions are my own and do not represent them or my customers/etc)
Re:Sustainable? (Score:3, Informative)
Not really, Apple didn't have anything of value so Nokia et al. asked for cash, this is not unusual as many manufacturers such as HTC, LG, Huewei and so forth pay cash because they dont have a sufficient patent portfolio. Only the top tier R&D companies like Sony Eriksson, Motorola and Nokia have a no fee cross licensing agreement.
The way it works is, Manufacturer A has no patents, so they pay $50 per unit to Nokia for use of the patents they use, Manufacturer B has 2 patents, Nokia et al. determine this is worth $20 and make a cross licensing agreement so that B only pays $30 per unit. Everyone pays RAND (Reasonable And Non Discriminatory) fees for things like GSM, even Nokia and Motorola although they are paying fees to themselves (and others)
Apple did not want to play this way at all, they claimed they paid RAND so they should be permitted to use the entirety of Nokia's patent portfolio, which is not true as RAND only covers a limited number of patents. Nokia negotiated with Apple for 3 years until they finally got sick of the stonewalling and just sued.