Another day, another lawsuit. Motorola says its subsidiary, Motorola Mobility, has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging that Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and certain Mac computers infringe Motorola patents. Motorola Mobility also filed patent infringement complaints against Apple in the Northern District of Illinois and the Southern District of Florida.
Overall, Motorola Mobility’s three complaints include 18 patents, which the company says relates to early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in technology areas found on many of Apple’s core products and associated services, including MobileMe and the Apple App Store. The Motorola patents include wireless communication technologies, such as WCDMA (3G), GPRS, 802.11 and antenna design, and key smartphone technologies including wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization.
Motorola Mobility has requested that the ITC commence an investigation into Apple’s use of Motorola’s patents and, among other things, issue an Exclusion Order barring Apple’s importation of “infringing” products, prohibiting further sales of infringing products that have already been imported, and halting the marketing, advertising, demonstration and warehousing of inventory for distribution and use of such imported products in the United States. In the District Court actions, Motorola Mobility has requested that Apple cease using Motorola’s patented technology and provide compensation for Apple’s past infringement.
