Motorola suing Apple for patent infringement

It's getting hard to keep track of, isn't it? The way we hear it told, most of these patent disputes and overlaps in the mobile space used to be settled in quiet ways, mutually assured destruction-style, but lately there's a whole lot of nukes going off. Motorola is now suing Apple over a wide range of technology patents which it claims Apple is infringing on with its iPhone, iPad, "iTouch," and even some Macs. The company is leveling three complaints which include 18 patents on "early-stage innovations" by Motorola, covering a pretty wide swath of the mobile landscape, including WCDMA, GPRS, 802.11, antenna design, wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization. Outside of the devices, Apple's MobileMe and App Store services get called out specifically. At the end of its press release Motorola makes a very similar claim to the one Nokia made at the outset of its own lawyer salvo against Apple:

We have extensively licensed our industry-leading intellectual property portfolio, consisting of tens of thousands of patents in the U.S. and worldwide. After Apple's late entry into the telecommunications market, we engaged in lengthy negotiations, but Apple has refused to take a license. We had no choice but to file these complaints to halt Apple's continued infringement.

We'll of course be digging deeper as we get more info, and covering the blow by blow with perhaps just a little too much enthusiasm. Oh, and before you go, riddle us this: do you think this is a preemptive strike on Motorola's part, afraid of another Android-related lawsuit from Apple, or has Apple been holding off for precisely the threat this lawsuit represents? Or maybe Moto's still mad about that antenna thing? Perhaps we'll never know.

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Motorola suing Apple for patent infringement originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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