Motorola Being Dragged Into Patent Lawsuit

Intellectual Ventures has set its sights on Motorola with a new lawsuit alleging that the mobile device maker has infringed on six of their patents.

The patents cover a variety of technologies related to text messaging, docking stations and pushing software out to devices.

Intellectual Ventures, which owns 35,000 patents, said it approached Motorola in January about licensing patents, including several named in the case, according to the lawsuit. Motorola refused to license the patents, Intellectual Ventures said.

Motorola, which is the subject of several other patent lawsuits, declined to comment on the dispute.

The suit names a number of Motorola products as infringing, including the Atrix, Photon 4G, Milestone, Triumph and Brute i680.

Though Intellectual Ventures said it first approached Motorola in January, records at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show that all but one of the patents were transferred to the company in July and September.

It’s up to patent holders to file documents showing transfer of ownership with the patent office, so the discrepancy of timing probably means only that the company was slow in doing its paperwork, said David Mixon, a patent attorney with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.

While patent lawsuits have become commonplace in the mobile industry, this one has a unique twist. Google, which recently announced plans to acquire Motorola, is an investor in Intellectual Ventures, patent expert Florian Mueller noted in a blog post Thursday.

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