Motorola sues Apple for patent infringement

Don't disregard this because it sounds familiar; it seems everyone is feeling litigious these days. Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Motorola, has filed suit with the U.S. International Trade Commission, claiming that Apple's iPhone, iPad, iTouch, and certain Mac computers infringe on Motorola patents.

Motorola's 18 allegedly infringed properties include "early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas found on many of Apple's core products and associated services, including MobileMe and the App Store." Motorola also named WCDMA, GPRS, antenna design, wireless email, application management, location-based services, proximity sensing, and multi-device synchronization as similarly infringed properties.

The suit calls for Apple to cease the "marketing, advertising, demonstration and warehousing of inventory for distribution and use of such imported products in the United States," and compensate Motorola for their past use.

Kirk Dailey of Motorola Mobility claims that Motorola has made every effort to sell Apple licenses on the patents in question, but they refused. Dailey says Motorola "has no choice but to file these complaints to halt Apple's continued infringement."

Their suit is likely motivated by the recent sparring match between Apple and Motorola, in which Apple sued Motorola for its use of Google's Android OS, which Apple claims infringes on their iOS. They have also generated bad blood with their mutually exchanged negative press about antenna issues.

source:  Motorola via Engadget