Apple Sues Motorola Over Patent Infringement

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has filed two lawsuits against Motorola in a Washington-based U.S. district court, alleging that its smartphones and OS infringe on Apple’s intellectual property. This development is a response from Apple for the lawsuit Motorola filed against it in October, alleging patent infringement.
Apple alleges that Motorola violates six of its patents related to touch-screen and multitouch technology, “as well as ways to display, access and interact with information on the phone,” WSJ reports.

Motorola had this response: “Motorola has a leading intellectual-property portfolio, one of the strongest in the industry, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves in this matter. We are confident in our position and will pursue our litigation to halt Apple’s continued infringement.”
This is a similar lawsuit to one Apple filed against mobile phone manufacturer — and prominent Android player — HTC last March. Because attacking Google directly isn’t very effective since it gives Android away for free, Apple can go after the manufacturers that employ the threatening OS. After all, they have enough revenue to make it worthwhile for Apple.
“Apple’s coming under assault now and they’re using every tool at their disposal to try and hold the fort,” an analyst for Charter Equity Research told WSJ, adding that he doesn’t expect much to come of the lawsuits. Apple, it turns out, has a history of bullying competitors with lawsuits.

This comes at a crucial time for Motorola, which is planning to split off its mobile unit into a separate entity, and Android is the only OS used on the manufacturer’s smartphones. Some analysts are predicting that Motorola — which has basically been resurrected thanks to Android — might suffer once the iPhone hits Verizon.