It’s getting hard to keep up with the stacks of legal filings related to Apple today, but bear with us. On Friday, Apple filed another lawsuit against Motorola, this time in California district court, over technology in mobile devices that Apple says it has licenses to use.
Motorola sued Apple in April last year over use of technology covered by U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898 in Germany. Apple for its part says because Motorola has licensed Qualcomm to make chips that allow devices to connect to UMTS and GRPS networks, and Apple is a third-party licensee of Qualcomm, Apple can legally use the MDM6610 chip from Qualcomm and other components from the chipmaker in its devices.
The latest is that the iPhone maker is now suing Motorola in the U.S., asking the District Court for the Southern District of California to step in a prevent the company from suing Apple for using technologies it says it is already licensed to use.
From the complaint:
Motorola’s German lawsuit is in direct breach of a Patent Licensing Agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm. As a Qualcomm customer, Apple is a third-party beneficiary of that contract. Moreover, under this same contract, Motorola’s rights under the ‘336 and the ‘898 patents are exhausted.
Apple also claims breach of contract and is asking for an injunction.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
- LTE changes everything; LTE changes nothing
- Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
- CES 2012: a recap and analysis
