Apple adds 12 more patents to lawsuit against Motorola

While Apple have a record of innovation in other areas, if readers check GSMArena and other veteran phone blogs, they will discover how innovative Motorola have been in phone design, not just in wireless, something they are historically renowned for.

Apple's greatest mistake, (and this is why ALL of their wireless equipped products, including Powerbooks, (some) Macbooks, all iPhone models and the WiFi iPad have a history of flaky wireless performance) was not to purchase a wireless hardware vendor a while back, if not Motorola themselves, who would have not only provided Apple decades of wireless expertise, but captured a future Android OEM.

On this one, as an avid Apple user (typing this on an iPad), I must side with Motorola.
QUOTE=AppleInsider;1763131]Apple has amended its lawsuit against Motorola to include 12 more patents, bringing the total count of patents that Apple accuses Motorola of violating to 24, while Motorola alleges that Apple has infringed on 18 of its patents.

Motorola first sued Apple in October in what many believe was a preemptive move after Apple sued HTC for violation of smartphone patents that the company holds. Motorola and HTC are two of the most prominent makers of Android-based smartphones.

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it," Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said of his company's case against HTC. "We've decided to do something about it."

In its suit against Apple, Motorola accused the iPhone maker of refusing to pay a license after "lengthy negotiations." Motorola also claims Apple infringed upon patents relating to technologies that include 3G, GPRS, 802.11 wireless and antenna design.

After Motorola sued Apple, the Cupertino, Calif., company quickly responded with a countersuit. Last week, the U.S. International Trade Commission announced that it was launching a formal investigation of Motorola in response to Apple's allegations.

Apple's motion this week to add an additional 12 patents to its lawsuit against Motorola counters a preemptive request filed by Motorola in October for a declaratory judgment that would block Apple from using those patents against Motorola in court. The declaratory judgment references 11 patents that Apple used in its suit against HTC, but had yet to use against Motorola.

The iPhone maker has requested that Motorola's declaratory judgment case, which was filed in Delaware, be dismissed or moved to Wisconsin, where Apple's suit against Motorola was filed, Electronista reports. Apple argues that since Motorola is already suing Microsoft in Wisconsin, moving the declaratory judgment case there shouldn't be a problem.

Apple's legal wrangling has made it the "world's most-sued tech company" since 2008 and forced it to expand its legal department. According to a Bloomberg earlier this week, Apple has brought on "some of the nation's top patent lawyers as outside counsel."

In 2009, 27 patent infringement lawsuits were filed against Apple. According to Apple, responding to those claims, whether valid or not, consumes "significant time and expense."

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This is not a little number...... \

Kinda' sounds like more tit for tat as in, nyahh, nyahh, now we're suing you for more patent violations than you're suing us for.

I know some of these cases may be important, and that IP and basic hardware patents are huge - but we've learned most of these cases that aren't dismissed early end up in trading reciprocal rights, or if from one side, to the other agreeing to license fees.

America is the most litigious society in the world. That's 'cos we got more damn lawyers per square inch than makes any sense. Shakespeare knew. Anyway, check back in with a report when something's decided already.....

Feels like old times again, except this time it's not Apple vs Microsoft. It's Apple vs HTC, Motorola, + yet to be named defendants or claimants in the battle over mobile patents.

Sadly, the court system, patent system, and all the agencies created to enforce the rules are simply no better equipped to deal with these disputes today than they were more than 2 decades ago. This almost guarantees that the coming legal storm will be long and drawn out, concluding long after the mobile wars are over and one platform has already come out dominant regardless of whether or not they legally deserved to.

As regretful as it is, it's not surprising. While mobile tech has been around for quite awhile now, we're now at a point where it's a land grab, as if the mobile landscape was the wild west. Naturally, every company that has even a hope of remaining relevant had best assert the patent claims now to ensure their place in licensing technology and the royalties that come with it.

Get some towels. The fight's gonna get messy.

Motorola is highly likely to be making 7" and 10" tablets soon showing just how desperate Motorola has become, grasping at anything to stay relevant.

Apple has been innovating and making wireless (WiFi) devices for years involving transmission of data using radio waves.

They have a decades long history in the field of computer hardware and PDA's (Newton).

It's like the 1984 ad all over again with Apple breaking free of the Cellphone "Big Brother" consortium of companies who sought to maintain their control by keeping out new players.

Motorola's innovation died with the Razr, Nokia's innovation died with the N95 when both companies became complacent and misread the massive change instigated by Apple.

Such a showdown became almost inevitable as the worlds of cellphones and computers converged.

What is surprising is that Apple is using their own data dormancy state with the 4.2 iOS update as was recently discovered by Nokia-Seimens networks, so how much more did Apple create independently of the cellphone status quo?

Something which is up to the courts to decide.