Submitted by The sand has hit the elephant. The buttons have dried the desert. The empty CD-Rs are dancing to Radiohead. The unicorns have left the building. The US International Trade Commission is going to be working overtime this year: after Nokia and Apple, Motorola, too, has now filed a complaint with the ITC, seeking a ban on imports of RIM devices.
It seems the faeces are really hitting the fan now. After both Nokia and Apple filed complaints with the ITC due to alleged patent infringement, seeking a ban on imports of the other company’s products, Motorola has now joined the fray. It claims that Blackberry maker Research In Motion is violating some of its patents.
“The five patents listed in Motorola’s complaint relate to certain early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas, such as Wi-Fi access, application management, user interface and power management, that are now being used by RIM,” the press release reads, “These patented technologies are important to Motorola as they allow for more comprehensive connectivity, a better user experience and lower product costs.”
Motorola requests that the ITC investigate the patent claims, and that it issues an exclusion order on RIM’s products. An exclusion order could mean that all RIM products will be barred from the United States market.
“Through its early-stage development of the cellular industry and billions of dollars spent on research and development, Motorola has created an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio that is respected by the entire telecommunications industry,” says Jonathan Meyer, senior vice president of intellectual property law at Motorola, “In light of RIM’s continued unlicensed use of Motorola’s patents, RIM’s use of delay tactics in our current patent litigation, and RIM’s refusal to design out Motorola’s proprietary technology, Motorola had no choice but to file a complaint with the ITC to halt RIM’s continued infringement.”
I’m sure all this will eventually end with settlements, but in the meantime, I’d like to thank Apple, Nokia, and Motorola for making sure OSAlert and other websites have filler material for years to come.
The beauty of mutually assured destruction. Now we see the violence inherent in the system…
Yes there is fundamentally wrong with technology patents, especially software patents – but I don’t suppose anything will be done until real harm is caused to the world economy.
How none of these companies ever have an issue… until their competitors are doing better then they are? Then suddenly they whip out the patent portfolio and wave it around like a big machine gun. RIM is kicking Motorola’s arse, now Motorola suddenly has an issue with them. Apple and Nokia, similar situation where by in the U.S smartphone market Apple is clobbering them. Not until then did they pull out the patent bs.
That may be because it takes a while for companies to agree to terms on licensing patents (eugh, however much I hate them^aEUR|), and it appears American companies don^aEURTMt tend to like paying for standing on foreign shoulders.
In the music industry the common knowledge is that for most of the time (not always) when a band releases a “best of” album it’s a sign that they are about to stop or break up, the claw back a little cash so they can retire.
Is the computing industries equivalent now patent sueing? It seems that every company which is going down the pan and is about to sink into oblivion launches a range of patent rows. We have had SCO, Palm in the beginning of the decade, etc, etc.. Now we have motorola which is well known to be loosing lots of cash and basically going out of business. If i was an investor had shares in the company, if i hadn’t have offloaded them before i would now.
I would include nokia in the list of companies, as although they are quite healthy and sell numerous quickie slim profit cheapy phones i think they are feeling a pinch in their higher end phones that used to get in a nice profit, which is why they launched a barrage of patent suits.
Motorola did make a small profit during the 4Q 2009, and their network division has been healthy and they sit on a lot of cash.
Motorola has licensed their patents to RIM before and that agreement expired in 2007, and they have been unable to renew the agreement. And when a new agreement can’t be reached they go to the court to speed things up, it happens all the time, and I think they reach a quick settlement.
And Nokia still has the largest share of the smartphone market and the new N900 are doing really well, and they have a strong card with free navigation. Main problem has been the network division.
Both Nokia and Motorola the two giants of Wireless who owned the phones at AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are now getting spanked and want the ITC to do what they damn well know they will never do.
Innovate you pukes.
Nokia and Motorola spent huge amounts of money to develop their innovative products, why should freeloaders like Apple and RIM get a free ride on their coat tails? (to paraphrase the Apple fanboy party line during the Psystar case)
Touche!
Yes, everybody knows what RIM is so the article need not explain it.
How about changing *first* appearance of RIM with “Research in Motion (RIM)” ?
This would be a dream come true…
A ban on BlackBerry phones? Why would this be a dream come true? If you don’t like the phones, don’t buy one. I can’t stand most Nokia phones but I don’t wish the company to be out of business; on the contrary, I think healthy competition is a great thing.
I believe we may be seeing the beginning of Patent Armageddon!
I sure hope this is it, because it is the only thing that will fix the idiotic patent system…
Or it could backfire in a very bad way. Imagine if the ITC decides to ban the iPhone, all Nokia phones, all Motorola phones and all RIM phones. We’d be left with Windows Mobile and a few HTC Android models.
Then again, that would be quite a funny outcome: Windows vs Linux on the desktop AND in the palm, without even an Apple model to compete with.
I don’t think so! If for an example the carrier steps in and pays the royalty then it would be ok to import and sell the product. And when one carrier would do so the rest would fallow, and they have done so in 2007.
But the most likely scenario of a ban, would be a quick settlement and a cross-licensing agreement.
The result of RIM and Apple removed is over night Android becomes the second biggest mobile phone os. It might end up one of the only safe OS’s from the MAD battle.
Thinking Linux phones are made by Nokia and Motorala.
Notice Nokia and Motorala are not attacking Linux items. The numbers of defensive patents Linux Foundation has at there disposal out numbers what Nokia and Motorala has.
Its only a matter of time until this blood bath spreeds to anyone making a MS moblie phone.
Any victory linux makes based on litigation and not on its merits is not a real victory.