Motorola sues Apple for patent infringement

Motorola is taking Apple to court after licence negotiations broke down

Motorola has launched legal action against Apple for patent infringement in its Mac, iPod and iPhone lines.

The company has launched three complaints claiming that Apple has broken 18 patents Motorola says it holds. The patents are also infringed by Apple’s App Store and MobileMe services, according to Motorola.

“Motorola has innovated and patented throughout every cycle of the telecommunications industry evolution, from Motorola’s invention of the cell phone to its development of premier smartphone products. We have extensively licensed our industry-leading intellectual property portfolio, consisting of tens of thousands of patents in the US and worldwide,” said Kirk Dailey, corporate vice president of intellectual property at Motorola Mobility.

“After Apple’s late entry into the telecommunications market, we engaged in lengthy negotiations, but Apple has refused to take a licence. We had no choice but to file these complaints to halt Apple’s continued infringement.”

The 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 is becoming increasingly used to court proceedings. Only last week the company was sued by Microsoft for patent infringement over nine handsets that use the Android operating system.