If you’re thinking Apple is getting lawyer-happy again, you’ll have to try again another day. This time it’s Microsoft V. Motorola and patents. Â While this is good in the sense of it being a sign of Android’s growing popularity and dominance in the market, litigation is generally not a good thing. So what’s Microsoft’s beef with Motorola? From Horacio Gutierrez, Â vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing, so you know it’s going to be interesting:
Microsoft filed an action today in the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola, Inc. for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by Motorola’s Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.
We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market. Motorola needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its Android smartphones.
So we’re talking about email syncing and battery notifications. Riveting stuff. But, I suppose a corporation will do just about anything to retain its hold on market share. Microsoft has already gone after HTC for other “patent infringements”, so it’s reasonable to assume Samsung will also be in the crosshairs sometime in the future.
Source: Techcrunch, Microsoft
