Patent battles by tech giants a fuzzy midpoint in phoney war - The Irish Times - Fri, Oct 08, 2010

MOTOROLA THIS week began proceedings against Apple for what it claimed were violations of its patents. The patents – Motorola claimed these include innovations in 3G and Wi-Fi antenna design, wireless e-mail, proximity sensing and software application management – all revolve around Apple’s iPhone, which just happens to be a major competitor.

If you haven’t heard about this lawsuit, it may be because it’s one of approximately a bazillion patent battles in the mobile field.

On Tuesday, Microsoft sued Motorola over its Android smartphones, including e-mail, contacts and calendar synchronisation. In March, Apple sued HTC, another maker of Android phones. The creator of Android itself, Google, was sued by Oracle for patent violations in August. Nokia is suing Apple, Qualcomm, the LG Group, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi and Motorola.

Motorola sues Apple for patent infringement

Motorola, just days after being targeted in a patent suit by Microsoft, filed complaints against Apple on Wednesday alleging that the iPhone, iPad and other products infringe its patents.

The Motorola complaints allege that Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and certain Macintosh computers infringe 18 patents 'which relate to early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas.'

Motorola files patent lawsuits against Apple

Motorola has filed two patent lawsuits and a patent complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging that a wide range of Apple products infringe its patents.

The three complaints cover 18 Motorola patents, including communication technologies related to W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), general packet radio service (GPRS), 802.11 and antenna design, as well as smartphone technologies related to wireless e-mail, proximity sensing, application management and location-based services, Motorola said in a press release.

Microsoft, Motorola Lawsuit: A Settlement Waiting to Happen

Every time I turn around, someone's suing Android directly or by proxy--the latest being Microsoft's patent-infringement lawsuit against Motorola launched this past Friday. In the suit, Microsoft alleges that nine of its patents were violated.

This is the third time software makers have gone after Android or Android-based phones this year. In March, HTC found themselves in Apple's cross hairs as another proxy against Google's Android, with another patent lawsuit. This summer, Oracle went straight at Google, claiming its Java code was being improperly used in Android.