14 DAY TRIAL // Motorola Mobility, a Motorola Inc. subsidiary, has announced that it has filed complaints against Microsoft over infringement of sixteen patents by Microsoft’s PC and Server software, Windows mobile software and Xbox products.
Motorola's action follows Microsoft's recent court complaint that the handset manufacturer “broke its promises” to license Wi-Fi (802.11) and H.264 video coding patents “under reasonable rates, with reasonable terms, and under non-discriminatory conditions.”
Microsoft said that Motorola was charging unfair licensing fees for 802.11 WiFi and H.264 video and asked that the court rule the royalties unreasonable and asked for compensation.
Kirk Dailey, corporate vice president of intellectual property at Motorola Mobility, noted that Microsoft also has filed separate patent infringement litigation against Motorola.
“It is unfortunate,” he said, “that Microsoft has chosen the litigation path rather than entering into comprehensive licensing negotiations, as Motorola has mutually beneficial licensing relationships with the great majority of technology companies industry-wide.”
On the other hand, Motorola is suing Microsoft over patents ranging from Microsoft Outlook to Xbox and Bing Maps.
“Motorola’s R&D and intellectual property are of great importance to the Company and are renowned worldwide. We are committed to protecting the interests of our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders and are bringing this action against Microsoft in order to halt its infringement of key Motorola patents,” said Dailey.
“Motorola has invested billions of dollars in R&D to create a deep and broad intellectual property portfolio and we will continue to do what is necessary to protect our proprietary technology,” added Dailey.
Motorola is currently fighting on two fronts, after it decided to sue Apple over a wide range of mobile technology patents, including, but not limited to, WCDMA, GPRS, Wi-Fi 802.11, antenna design, wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization.