Apple: You Sue Us? We'll Sue You!

[Paul Daniel Ash]

Following a lawsuit by Motorola accusing Apple of patent infringement, Apple has gone ahead and filed two lawsuits of its own against Motorola in US federal court. The suit claims that Motorola has copied some of Apple's fundamental intellectual property in regard to the multi-touch interface on the Droid and other phones.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed on October 29 in the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Apple alleges in two separate actions, that Motorola has infringed six of its patents in their Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour A555, Devour i1, and Charm 1 phones. The first case involves multi-touch technology, including patents on "Ellipse Fitting for Multi-Touch Surfaces," "Multipoint Touchscreen" and "Object-Oriented System Locator System. The second case is primarily operating system-level intellectual property, and accuses Motorola of violating Apple's patents on "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics," "Method and Apparatus for Displaying and Accessing Control and Status Information in a Computer System," and "Support for Custom User-Interaction Elements in a Graphical, Event-Driven Computer System."

Earlier this month, Motorola had sued Apple in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the Southern District of Florida and also filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission, saying that Apple had refused to buy licenses for Mototrola technology despite lengthy negotiations. In a separate action, Motorola also filed suit to prevent Apple from suing them for infringing 12 patents... even though Apple never accused Motorola of doing so. None of those 12 patents are part of the lawsuit filed Friday.

Source: 9to5Mac

[whereswaldo]

Double lawsuit
What does it mean?

[Silverado87]

Double lawsuit
What does it mean?

Lol awesome

[MPS3]

i bet apples law firm loves them =)
its never a doll day @ apple HQ

[christopherjason]

Double lawsuit
What does it mean?

its like a double negative they both lose.

[WaLLy3K]

i bet apples law firm loves them =)
its never a doll day @ apple HQ

Oh yeah, Stevie just loves playing with his voodoo dolls but unfortunately he doesn't like to share.

[Retrospect]

The moral of the story is don't pick a fight with Apple.

[alexevo]

am i the only one that finds apple's patent for essentially "using your fingers to make the phone do stuff other than tapping" is pretty f'ing broad. i don't think you can simply say "if you do anything other than tap then you are violating our patent". it should allow other companies to either use the same technology and use fingers or multiple fingers to make the phone do things or make it so you can only patent a certain type like pinch to zoom, etc. did they successfully sue for the hold your finger to open copy/paste/etc. or for the double tap to zoom features as well? instead of suing for bullsht reasons apple why don't you win by making a better product? not saying the droid is better, i've had 4 different droid products and I like my iphone much better but if apple gets a monopoly then who is going to stop them from making SH1TT1ER products in the future and then suing others that try to make a better one?

[jw_mahoney81]

Just like apple did to Microsoft back in the first days of windows.

And the funny part is, if you take apart a Macintosh computer motorola chips are all over the place. I bet there is even one or two in the iPhones

As for the use of pinch to zoom and **** like that, come on apple. I could see if they took the physical technology and just rebranded it, or used your code, but if someone can write a new code that accomplishes the same task then that's fine. Just like medication, the brand name is one thing, but then you can get the generic medication, it's the same idea, but made with different process.

[AnthonyGiola]

LMAO. I think Motorola is feeling like **** right about now. First they sue for not buying their crap then apple sues back and its way better. LMAO

[KBI2113]

Full on, all the da way, double lawsuit. It's so bright and vivid! It's starting to look like a triple lawsuit. AWWWWWW DOUBLE LAWSUIT!!!!!!

[Evilsaint]

Fire with fire ? :P


Sent from my iPhone using ModMyi

[mardinn]

Double lawsuit
What does it mean?

In the world where logic is the dominating part of the world, they should cancel out, but in the world that we live in the lawsuits will create war.

[leathelisor]

LMAO. I think Motorola is feeling like **** right about now. First they sue for not buying their crap then apple sues back and its way better. LMAO

how is it way better? lol...apples suit is "your screens uses an interface where a user uses their finger to interact". thats not that much better than "you promised to buy licences for some of our products that you used and you didn't". If anything, motorolla's is at least logical. you just sound like a fanboy that says anything is better just because apple did it.

[VBLUE42]

I think some of you miss the point here. It really doesn't matter if Apple secured a patient on something you think shouldn't be able to be patented. The fact is, they secured the damn patient and they can sue anyone they see fit for violating it. My guess is they knew Moto violated it over a year ago but just didn't pull the trigger. This is done specifically for situations like this. Moto fired first when Apple stole there patient so Apple is just countering so Moto will realize it isn't worth it. This is purely a strategic move to stall and fizzle both law suits and both will settle or drop the suits. Business as usual people. Now, if you want to flame an organization for a patient, the patient board is who you need to go after. Don't blame Apple for being able to sell the patient board into their application.

[one1]

Moto has been in business a lot longer than Apple is giving them credit for. The fact is that if Cisco would have not been so light handed and laid into Apple when they had the chance Apple would have had a taste of what it is like to go against a real monster of a company. Cisco makes Apple look like two tins cans and a string in company size, rather than a top phone supplier. Once Cisco let Apple slide by Apple has been "invincible" ever since in their "screw you we do it our way" attitude. Motorola is just as much a monster as Cisco and if they decide to wipe Apple across the floor, unlike Cisco, Apple will get a taste of what a company with no incentive to fold can do with unlimited resources.

It would boil down to the shareholders ousting Jobs right before going broke.

[AjBlue]

Funny part is, apple could sue a lot more people and easily win. but they do not care, until you piss them off. by trying to sue them once. its all out open warfare from then on out.

[imanono]

Oh my god, double lawsuit all the way!

[topless1967stang]

I think some of you miss the point here. It really doesn't matter if Apple secured a patient on something you think shouldn't be able to be patented. The fact is, they secured the damn patient and they can sue anyone they see fit for violating it. My guess is they knew Moto violated it over a year ago but just didn't pull the trigger. This is done specifically for situations like this. Moto fired first when Apple stole there patient so Apple is just countering so Moto will realize it isn't worth it. This is purely a strategic move to stall and fizzle both law suits and both will settle or drop the suits. Business as usual people. Now, if you want to flame an organization for a patient, the patient board is who you need to go after. Don't blame Apple for being able to sell the patient board into their application.

Patient? You mean like a person in a hospital? Or like have some patience?
Or perhaps you mean patent, which is what we are taking about.

[Tyronal]

A Mexican standoff all the way. Now they'll sit down and reach a licensing agreement where they both get to use each others patents legally. Déjà vu. This happens all the time. And the greedy little lawyers rub their hands all the way to the bank.