Did Google okay Motorola's lawsuit against Apple?
Yesterday, Motorola filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the iPhone 4S and iCloud, citing six patents which Motorola had used against other Apple devices in the same court. That Motorola and Apple are in a lawsuit isn't really anything surprising given the number of patents we've seen being tossed around in court, the interesting thing is that this lawsuit has been filed now.
By now, we mean that this is the first lawsuit filed by Motorola since the acquisition deal with Google was agreed upon. This is important because the purchase agreement doesn't allow Motorola Mobility to "assert any Intellectual Property Right in any new Action" unless Google says it is okay. So, it seems pretty likely that Google gave the go-ahead before Motorola filed this lawsuit. Google has stayed away from filing lawsuits, although it has been sued, though never by Apple. Apple has filed a few lawsuits against Android partner manufacturers, so maybe this is the first of Google firing back, albeit indirectly.
Motorola may have preferred to just add the iPhone 4S and iCloud to the existing lawsuit against Apple, but that case seems to be too far along to do that, so it needed to file a new suit, which likely needed Google's approval. We're not going to bother getting into the actual patents cited, because it is the same stupid patents that shouldn't exist in the first place like a "receiver having concealed external antenna". Apple isn't the only company out there with silly patents and silly lawsuits, Motorola (and Google by proxy) can get in that game too.
source: FOSS Patents
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Things that are NOT allowed: