Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) struck back against Motorola (NYSE:MOT), suing the company for violating its patents in the latest round of legal wrangling between smartphone makers.
The Apple lawsuit is a response to lawsuits filed by Motorola last month that alleged Apple violated Motorola's intellectual property. Apple's new complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin, said Motorola--along with Google's Android platform--infringed on six of Apple's patents. Apple said in its filings that the patents relate to touchscreen and multi-touch technology, as well as technology that involves displaying, accessing and interacting with information on phones. Apple is seeking damages and wants the court to block Motorola from selling its infringing Android phones.
Motorola said it will battle back against Apple's suits. "Motorola has a leading intellectual-property portfolio, one of the strongest in the industry, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves in this matter," the company said in a statement, according to the Wall Street Journal. "We are confident in our position and will pursue our litigation to halt Apple's continued infringement."
Apple is now locked in two serious legal spats with two top Android handset vendors, Motorola and HTC, and many analysts regard Apple's actions as indirect attacks on Google.
Apple's latest attack on Motorola comes weeks after Motorola accused Apple of infringing on 18 of its patents, and after Motorola asked a federal judge in Delaware to invalidate 11 Apple patents in Apple's separate patent dispute with HTC. Apple and HTC have been locked in a patent dispute that started earlier this year.
For more:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this Engadget post
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