On Wednesday, Motorola fired back against Microsoft, suing the software giant for patent infringement that the suit claims involves a number of key Microsoft products.
Motorola filed separate suits in both the Southern District of Florida as well as the Western District of Wisconsin, alleging that Microsoft's products infringed at least six of Motorola's patents. (Copies of the Wisconsin suit were not immediately available, as the court's Web site was down for maintenance.)
Microsoft said it was reviewing the suit. "We are still reviewing Motorola's filing, which we just received," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft, in a statement. "This move is typical of the litigation process and we are not surprised. We remain confident in our position and will continue to move forward with the complaints we initiated against Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and with the International Trade Commission (ITC)."
The Florida suit, however, claims that Microsoft's Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7, plus Microsoft's Bing, Windows Live Messaging, and even the Xbox game console all violate Motorola's patents.
Motorola also challenged Microsoft's use of Wi-Fi and digital video encoding patents, two topics that are at issue in Microsoft's own suit against Motorola, which argued that Motorola was obligated to provide so-called Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory licensing terms to Microsoft, as per a trade industry group's bylaws. In early October, Microsoft also sued Motorola, claiming that Motorola's Android phones violated certain Microsoft patents.
"Motorola's R&D and intellectual property are of great importance to the Company and are renowned worldwide," Kirk Dailey, corporate vice president of intellectual property at Motorola Mobility, said in a statement. "We are committed to protecting the interests of our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders and are bringing this action against Microsoft in order to halt its infringement of key Motorola patents. Motorola has invested billions of dollars in R&D to create a deep and broad intellectual property portfolio and we will continue to do what is necessary to protect our proprietary technology."
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