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Apple sues Motorola Mobility over Qualcomm license

Friday, February 10, 2012 · 4:30 pm · 29 Comments

“Apple sued Motorola Mobility in a U.S. court on Friday in an attempt to stop Motorola from asserting some patent claims against Apple in Germany, according to the lawsuit,” Dan Levine reports for Reuters

“The suit, filed in a San Diego federal court, argues that Motorola’s German lawsuit against Apple breaches terms of a patent licensing agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm,” Levine reports. “In the latest lawsuit, Apple says that as a Qualcomm customer, Apple is a third-party beneficiary of Motorola’s agreement with Qualcomm. Under that agreement, Motorola’s rights under certain patents are exhausted, Apple argues.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Fred Mertz" and "Dan K." for the heads up.]

Related article:
Motorola Mobility loses patent case against Apple in Germany – February 10, 2012

Categories: News

Tags: aapl, Apple Inc., lawsuit, legal, MMI, Motorola Mobility, patent infringement, patents, Qualcomm

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Comment Feed

29 Comments

Netcruizer99

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 4:45 pm · Reply

I hope Apple sues them to recoup all their legal costs. It would serve Motorola right to have to pay for all of Apples legal fees in relation to their patent lawsuit.
billyjackblack

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 4:53 pm · Reply

Classic case of double dipping. Google and Motorola are perfect for each other. One likes to double dip and the other likes to double cross.
- RePlay
  
  Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:03 pm · Reply
  
  Double, double, boil and bubble.
  - althegeo
    
    Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:17 pm · Reply
    
    William Shakespeare is rolling in his grave.
    
    Or, maybe, it’s Sir Francis Bacon who’s doing the rolling.
    - WaterLily
      
      Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:25 pm · Reply
      
      Ahhh it’s Elton John,
      “rolling like thunder – under the covers”.
      
      How many points did I win?
      - billyjackblack
        
        Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:57 pm · Reply
        
        Thanks for the thought that’s gonna be stuck in my head for the rest of the day – picturing Elton John rolling under the covers.
        
        WaterLily
        
        Friday, February 10, 2012 - 6:17 pm · Reply
        
        SORRY to pain you with that thought
        
        Maybe Shakespeare and Bacon doing it – the boil and bubble?
        Sick.
    - m159
      
      Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 8:44 am · Reply
      
      ‘Tis not Bacon. Although the recent film is wrong on several major assumptions, Edward de Vere (Oxford) has his fingerprints on every line of the Shakespeare canon. There is enough recent scholarship to settle the who, how, and why the illiterate little man from Stratford got the credit.
      - Maynard G.
        
        Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 3:36 pm · Reply
        
        Non sequitorus Maximus mais tres amusent thread hijacking!
FFS

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 4:55 pm · Reply

Didn’t MMI cancel the license with Qualcomm specifically with regard to Apple? I wouldn’t be surprised if restrictive practice was part of the lawsuit.
It’s beginning to look like Apple is luring the copycat makers out of the bushes, whose one and only shot – FRAND abuse, comes with a cluster fsck of gotchas.
This is gonna hurt ….
- Shawn F.
  
  Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 1:38 pm · Reply
  
  Yes they tried but Qualcomm rejected them doing so it is a breach of there contact
pridon

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 4:56 pm · Reply

Copy of filing on 9to5mac.com. MMI is getting desperate by having tried to unilaterally terminate its license with QCOM with regard to QCOM right to sell base band chips to Apple .

Perhaps Apple should refuse to buy from any vendor who supplies products to MMI. MMI would cease to be able to build phones. May not happen because of antitrust considerations. MMI is likely the next Kodak – with only what its IP is worth. How many Xooms and Moto Droid phones have you seen in the wild?
- althegeo
  
  Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:20 pm · Reply
  
  Best buy has lots of MMI’s shit. In the wild, notsomuch.
  - WaterLily
    
    Friday, February 10, 2012 - 6:23 pm · Reply
    
    Best buy it then huh
- Shawn F.
  
  Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 1:47 pm · Reply
  
  Patent law prevents a patent holder for charging more than once for the patent past the original license. Or double dipping to coin a phrase. If this were not the case anyone could be sued for using the patent at any time. Even end consumers of a product with a licensed technology. Hense the example above. Intel licenses a processor to say apple or asus. They put that processor in there computers. You buy the computer. Asus and apple have already paid the patent holder for the license for that processor. So because of that patent law says you don’t have to pay for the license to use that patent again because it was payed for by the manufacturer. If not intel could sue you for patent infringement. The patent law that protects you and all third parties is called patent exhaustion. In this case with Motorola apple as a third party bought a Qualcomm chip which Qualcomm already paid for the patent . Apple is then a third party to the patent and is by law covered by patent exhaustion . Which means Motorola can not double dip and make apple pay again. Motorola not only wants to do that they sent a letter to Qualcomm to exclude apple from ther patent agreement with Qualcomm which Qualcomm disagreed with and told Motorola they would not do due to the terms of there patent agreement. Plus Motorola could sue anyone the same way which means droid phone vendors too. They all use this chip. Not only that they want 2.25% of the final price of the complete iPhone as royalties. That is ridiculous . It amounts to extortion over a FRAND patent and would amount to billions. There suing Microsoft the Same way over an h.264 patent the Xbox uses. And want 2.25% of all Xbox sales worldwide. If this is allowed all companies not just apple and Microsoft will be crippled because they won’t be able to afford to make any products. It is anti competitive and the actions of a monopolistic company.
  - sharon Sharalike
    
    Sunday, February 12, 2012 - 9:12 am · Reply
    
    @Shawn F
    
    That’s the best summary of the situation I’ve seen.
WaterLily

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:23 pm · Reply

Go thermal nuclear APPLE !!!!

Whatever APPLE is using it has licensed from the owner – this is understood unless proven not so… I trust Apple has been playing the game legally and has bought new patent rights for better and future options. Not because it wishes to play Google way of things.
The heat is on. Kaboom !!!

Down with ANDROID – and bring down SAMSUNG, GOOGLE and MOTOROLA with it.
dddd

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:40 pm · Reply

Apple legal has a brilliant strategy playing out here. They’re smoking out all of the Google Proxies and FRAND patents, first, and laying a big trap.
Mike

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:46 pm · Reply

Apple is desperate.
- WaterLily
  
  Friday, February 10, 2012 - 6:20 pm · Reply
  
  why say that?
  - WaterLily
    
    Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 2:34 pm · Reply
    
    simple question and zoom Mikes left the building
- HTML5 Gordon
  
  Friday, February 10, 2012 - 7:41 pm · Reply
  
  Seriously?
- althegeo
  
  Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 12:13 pm · Reply
  
  $96 billion will make anyone desperate, NOT.
Now, Now...

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:53 pm · Reply

How much is Qualcomm worth? If Apple buys Qualcomm, where does that put things?
Count Beans

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 7:45 pm · Reply

The only winners are the patent lawyers who are feasting over all of this.
Mr. Potter

Friday, February 10, 2012 - 8:03 pm · Reply

A lot. More than Apple would ever want to pay. You can look it up. Here, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Qualcomm+market+value&l=1
twilightmoon

Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 7:44 am · Reply

Qualcomm market value is currently 104, and that’s before the take over markup. You can forget Apple “taking over”. They are very tight pursed when it comes to acquisitions. They have never paid more than a few hundred million and likely won’t any time soon.
WaterLily

Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 2:36 pm · Reply

Buying out Qualcomm would solve things anyways would it?
- Truth
  
  Saturday, February 11, 2012 - 6:29 pm · Reply
  
  No, it would complicate things.
  
  Qualcomm makes the chips Apple uses, they have the license. Apple (and ever other cellphone manufacturer) is covered under that license, MMI is trying to double-dip, and committing Frand abuse.
  
  They (MMI) are going to lose big.