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Motorola Sues Apple

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sue-sue-sudio dept.

rexjoec writes "Just a week after Motorola Inc. (MOT) itself became the target of legal action by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), it sued Apple Inc. (AAPL) for the alleged infringement of 18 of its patents. Motorola subsidiary, Motorola Mobility Inc. also filed patent suits against Apple in federal court in Illinois and Florida."

6 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Just great!! by udoschuermann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is great! If this madness continues, companies will spend 90% of their revenue filing or defending dozens of lawsuits, get nothing done anymore, and will clamor at the doors of congress to save them from the patent madness they once thought to be such a great idea.

    Or maybe we're all doomed.

    --
    --Udo.
    1. Re:Just great!! by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the end we'll all pay more for phones because these companies can't learn to get along. Who knows, they may each have patents for the same things issued by the infallible USPTO.

  2. No matter who loses, the lawyers win by macwhizkid · · Score: 5, Informative

    A diagram in the Guardian from last week nicely illustrates the insanity that is the mobile phone litigation business. With the vortex of lawsuits surrounding both hardware and software, it's amazing that anybody is able to innovate at all.

  3. Business as usual... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think we're seeing something different here. Company A gets sued by Company B, because B wants a revenue stream from a stupid patent (especially since it's rather obvious that B is struggling in the mobile market pretty badly). Company A, also struggling, doesn't want to have to pay for the eventual licensing out of its own funds, so it sues Company C to get a revenue stream that it will in turn use to pay B with (and maybe get a bit of extra besides). Eventually everyone is suing everyone else to, well, pay everyone else.

    It all looks good on paper, though, and it'll confuse the hell out of shareholders enough to make them look profitable.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  4. Re:Cellphone Market Turning Ugly For Apple by RingBus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple still has an army of fans in the media who will proclaim every new product as 'innovative' and 'amazing' regardless of the actually quality which will help less the blow of Android dominance. However there is now an air of acceptance from Apple fans that the iPhone is on its way to a Mac like marketshare and quite a bit of revisionist history of "Apple never wanted to dominate the cellphone market" rationalizing going on.

  5. Re:Cellphone Market Turning Ugly For Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's also an army of anti-Apple people who will up-mod anything tearing Apple apart. It's like a car with most of its weight at the front and back ends -- most of the time it balances out, but it does tend to go into a ditch a fair amount.