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Patent Infringement Lawsuit: Motorola vs. Apple – Florida Case 3

Patent Infringement Lawsuit Details: Microsoft vs. Motorola

1 - cover - microsoft vs. motorola - oct 2010 
Late last week Microsoft filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola in the Western District Court of Washington at Seattle. The lawsuit appears to be concerning Motorola allegedly infringement of Microsoft's technology that is laid out in the complaint under nine granted patents. The complaint zero's in on Motorola's "Droid 2" and "Charm" smartphones. According to Microsoft's legal counsel, their intellectual property rights in this case covers technology that relates to sending and receiving email on-the-go, managing calendars, surfing the web, playing music and videos, as well as running apps and managing memory for storing data. Their statement ends by trying to look like one of the good guys: "Our action today merely seeks to ensure respect for our intellectual property rights infringed by Android devices; and judging by the recent actions by Apple and Oracle, we are not alone in this respect." Microsoft is seeking, amongst other things, no less than a "reasonable royalty." For those interested in this case, our report will provide you with handy links to each of the patents listed in Microsoft's legal Complaint and more.

 

The Alleged Patent Infringement Counts In-Part

 

In eight out of the nine patents, Microsoft alleges that Motorola's "Droid 2" - "has been and/or is directly infringing and/or inducing infringement of and/or is contributorily infringing" all of the patents listed below, save for "the '746 patent" which relates to the Motorola Charm, "by among other things, making, using, offering to sell or selling in the United States, or importing into the United States, products and/or services that are covered by one or more claims " of each of the patent listed in suit. The listed patents in this case include the following:

 

  • U.S. Patent No. 5,579,517 ("the '517 patent") entitled: "Common name space for long and short filenames." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to data processing systems and, more particularly, to a common name space for long and short filenames.

 

  • U.S. Patent No. 5,758,352 ("the '352 patent") entitled: "Common name space for long and short filenames."

 

  • U.S. Patent No. 6,621,746 ("the '746 patent") entitled: "Monitoring entropic conditions of a flash memory device as an indicator for invoking erasure operations." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to flash memory devices, and more particularly, monitoring when to perform an erase operation in a flash memory device."

 

  • U.S. Patent No. 6,826,762 ("the '762 patent") entitled: "Radio interface layer in a cell phone with a set of APIs having a hardware-independent proxy layer and a hardware-specific driver layer." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to application programming interfaces (APIs) and, even more particularly, relates to a Radio Interface Layer comprising a set of APIs." Only this patent within the group relates to the product known as the "Motorola Charm."  

 

  • U.S. Patent No. 6,909,910 ("the '910 patent") entitled: "Method and system for managing changes to a contact database." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to mobile computing, and more particularly to updating a contact database within a mobile computing device."

 

  • U.S. Patent No. 7,644,376 ("the '376 patent") entitled: "Flexible architecture for notifying applications of state changes." Microsoft states in their patent that "Briefly described, the present invention is directed at unifying state and notification architecture across devices."  

     

  • U.S. Patent No. 5,664,133 ("the '133 patent") entitled: "Context sensitive menu system/menu behavior." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to the field of user interfaces for computer systems, and more particularly to graphical user interfaces wherein a user selects from a collection of graphical representations displayed upon a video screen corresponding to actual computer resources."

 

  • U.S. Patent No. 6,578,054 ("the '054 patent") entitled: "Method and system for supporting off-line mode of operation and synchronization using resource state information." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates to "to the support of on-line and off-line transmission and synchronization of data. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods that eliminate redundant data transmission and allow multiple copies of data to be synchronized so that incremental changes made to one copy of the data can be identified, transferred, and incorporated into the other copy of the data, regardless of whether the incremental changes are made on-line or off-line."  

     

  • U.S. Patent No. 6,370,566 ("the '566 patent") entitled: "Generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device." Microsoft's patent abstract describes the patent this way: The present invention includes a mobile device which provides the user with the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself. The mobile device creates an object representative of the meeting request and assigns the object a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object. In addition, the mobile device in accordance with one aspect of the present invention provides a property in the object which is indicative of whether the meeting request has already been transmitted. In this way, other devices which encounter the meeting request are capable of identifying it as a unique meeting request, and of determining whether the meeting request has already been transmitted, in order to alleviate the problem of duplicate meeting request transmissions.

 

Microsoft states that the Defendant, Motorola Inc., "is infringing and/or inducing others to infringe by making, using, offering to sell or selling in the United States, or importing into the United States, products or processes that practice inventions claimed in the Microsoft Patents.

 

The Defendant has profited through infringement of the Microsoft Patents. As a result of the Defendant's unlawful infringement of the Microsoft Patents, Microsoft has suffered and will continue to suffer damage. Microsoft is entitled to recover from the Defendant the damages suffered by Microsoft as a result of the Defendant's unlawful acts.

 

Upon information and belief, Defendant's infringement of one or more of the Microsoft Patents is willful and deliberate, entitling Microsoft to enhanced damages and reasonable attorney fees and costs.

 

Upon information and belief, the Defendant intends to continue their unlawful infringing activity, and Microsoft continues to and will continue to suffer irreparable harm—for which there is no adequate remedy at law—from such unlawful infringing activity unless the Defendant is enjoined by this Court."

 

Beyond the usual relief that is sought in such cases, Microsoft is seeking in their prayer for relief "a judgment awarding Microsoft compensatory damages as a result of Defendant's infringement of the Microsoft Patents, together with interest and costs, and in no event less than a reasonable royalty."

 

The complaint was filed on behalf of Microsoft by David E. Killough. Microsoft seeks a trial by jury.

 

Notice: Patently Apple presents only a brief summary of certain legal cases/ lawsuits which are part of the public record for journalistic news purposes. Readers are cautioned that Patently Apple does not offer an opinion on the merit of the case and strictly presents the allegations made in said legal cases / lawsuits. A lawyer should be consulted for any further details or analysis. About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments. On most legal cases, comments will be closed.

 

Side Notes: Patently Apple recognizes the importance of following the smartphone patent wars, even if some of these cases don't involve Apple directly. This is the new frontier, the new wild-wild west and the leaders of this new frontier will be constantly under siege by foreign and domestic competitors. How one competitor approaches the court may one day reflect their strategy against Apple.

 

 

Also review our Legal Archives for other smartphone related cases. 

 

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