Intellectual Ventures sued Motorola Mobility and the case is finally getting started

Jan 20, 2014 15:07 GMT  ·  By

Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility is getting ready to go to trial with Intellectual Ventures in a patent case

Intellectual Ventures is a company that buys patents, being one of the top-five owners of U.S. patents. This has earned the company the description of “patent troll” on countless occasions.

Intellectual Ventures sued Motorola back in 2011 and claimed that the phone maker was infringing a range of patents, including Google Play. Motorola denied allegations and said it would go to trial over three patents.

According to Reuters, Tuesday marks the beginning of the trial that will take place at a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware.

The case is considered to be a landmark for other similar trials, so it should be getting a lot of attention, especially given Google’s brand and Intellectual Ventures’ notoriety.

Since the US lawmakers are currently debating a new patent reform, the case is that much more important. Google has been fighting for some time to fend off patent trolls, which it believes to be hurting innovation.

If the jury rules in favor of Intellectual Ventures, it could pave the way for other patent trolls. However, if the win goes to Motorola, the case could be used as evidence that the U.S. government issues too many patents on things that shouldn’t ever be patented.

This isn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last that Google or one of the companies it owns gets dragged into the courthouse for one patent or another. However, the many patent-based suits filed in the past few years, many on the most basic technologies, prove that the system is faulty.

Many have stated countless times so far that companies such as Intellectual Ventures that only deal in buying patents and then suing others over them shouldn’t be allowed to operate unless they actually use the patents to produce something.