#28: Apple Wins Victory Against Motorola After ITC Invalidates Sensor Patent
Google has lost its court case against Apple.
The huge, multi-national corporation filed a patent claim against Apple. Google wanted Apple to obtain a license concerning its touch feature, which disabled touchscreen capabilities when the device was close to the users head to avoid mis-dialing. The case was held at the International Trade Commission, where the judges found Google's argument over a patent, which they had acquired through a buyout of Motorola Mobility, to be invalid. Google commented on the ruling, stating "Motorola Mobility's patent portfolio will help protect the Android ecosystem. Android, which is open-source software, is vital to competition in the mobile device space, ensuring hardware manufacturers, mobile phone carriers, applications developers and consumers all have choice."
Patent No. 6,246,862 references a "sensor controlled user interface for portable communication device," or the sensor in the iPhone that prevents the phone from being activated when close to a user's face.
The dispute between Motorola and Apple began in 2010 after Motorola filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming the Cupertino-based company infringed on eighteen of Motorola's patents. After being acquired by Google, Motorola expanded its charges against Apple, stating that the company violated six patents having to do with iCloud.
The patent that was invalidated today is the final patent in the above mentioned case, with all other charges against Apple previously cleared by the ITC. Google will likely appeal the decision, thus further extending the litigation between the two companies.
The whole point of Motorola has definitely not been worth it for Google. With over 12 billion Dollars spent on the acquisition it begs to question whether they made a smart investment or not.
ReplyDelete@Vineet I agree. It's hard to justify. Twelve billion dollars later, and they don't seem to have made a whole lot of ground in the patent wars.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to consider when pricing the acquisition are the market conditions. Right now there is very high demand for patents in the mobile technology space - perhaps that's what drove the price up to that astronomical figure? Does that mean we're in a patent bubble?
Everything just keeps spiraling downwards for Google. Motorolla has pretty much been bailed out by Google and Google is suffering alot. Maybe they should stop these litgations and just work to earning that $12.5 billion back.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat unsurprising outcome, given that Motorola patents seem to be pretty indolent with regards to effectiveness in patent litigation. Google appears to be going the route of implying that the Justice Department should intervene to prevent a monopoly by iOS, but it doesn't seem to be too relevant righw, given that Android has a >50% market share of the smartphone OS market.
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