The hits just keep on coming. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) has filed three complaints against Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) alleging patent infringement claims on practically everything that Apple has done with its iPhones, iPads and iTouch devices. Motorola even included complaints against some Macs.
It’s difficult to keep up, but here’s at least a partial scorecard: Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is suing Motorola for certain features on smartphones which use the Android operating system from Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Then Apple is suing HTC for essentially the same thing. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is suing Google for infringing on patents related to Java. Needless to say, those being sued are denying everything.
In its filings against Apple, Motorola claims that Apple infringed on 18 (!) patents related “to 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.” These patents include a number of communications technologies such as 3G, GPRS, Ethernet 802.11 and “key smartphone technologies” such as wireless e-mail, proximity sensing and location-based services.
Motorola even claims that Apple infringed on a patent related to antenna design. The irony defies description. Perhaps Apple should sue Motorola for lousy design work and send Motorola the bill for all those bumpers it shipped out to fix the iPhone 4 antenna issue.
The only company not on the offensive side of the lawsuit line of scrimmage is Google. The search company is playing defense in all these lawsuits, include the Microsoft suit against Motorola and the Apple suit against HTC. Motorola and HTC are Google proxies in these cases, which suits Apple and Microsoft just fine.
Whether or not anyone is guilty of infringing anything will sort itself out over time. In the meantime, these lawsuits keep the pot stirred up and raise questions among smartphone makers about what their liability will be should the ruling go against their partners.
Companies absolutely have the right to protect and defend their intellectual property. But it’s hard for those of us on the sidelines to take these actions very seriously when there are so many of them.
After all, a phone is just a phone. Maybe AT&T should sue everyone for infringing on its dialtone technology.
As of this writing, Paul Ausick did not own a position in any of the stocks named here
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