Apple Takes a Swipe at Motorola With Touchscreen Patent Suit

Apple has struck back at Motorola in the ever-widening smartphone technology patent wars, accusing the Illinois corporation of violating its touchscreen and other patents with several of its Android-based phones.

The lawsuit comes less than a month after Motorola sued Apple over claims the Cupertino, Calif., company used technology based on Motoroloa patents in the iPhone, iPad and other devices. Motorola also filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking for an investigation into the use of its patents and barring further importation of iPhones containing technology built on them.

Neither Apple nor Motorola responded to requests for comment on the lawsuits by deadline for this article.

Such lawsuits are extremely common, and they're most often as much about business strategy as they are the technologies underlying today's popular electronics, intellectual property attorney Dan Venglarik of the Munck Carter law firm in Dallas told MacNewsWorld.

"In general, it's simply about commercial advantage," he said.

Details of the Apple Lawsuit

The lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Madison, Wisc. In it, Apple accuses Motorola of infringing on at least four Apple patents. The suit is filed in the same court in which Motorola sued Apple on Oct. 6.

The lawsuit names nine handsets as violating Apple's patents, each of them Android-based. They are the Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour A555, Devour i1 and Charm.

The primary patents referenced in the lawsuit are a 2010 patent, filed in 2007, that has to do with implementation of multi-touch gestures, and another 2010 patent involving the invention of a capacitive-sensing touchscreen.

In its lawsuit, Apple calls Motorola's use of the technologies "willful and deliberate" and asks for triple damages, court costs and attorney fees in its filing.

Details of the Motorola Complaint

On Oct. 6, Motorola sued Apple in Wisconsin and Florida district courts, claiming the company made use of 18 of its patents in the iPhone, iPad and some other products. The company also filed an FTC complaint seeking an investigation of Apple's patent usage.

Motorola wants nothing less than an end to all importation, sales and even warehousing of iPhone, iPad and other allegedly infringing hardware.

Many More Lawsuits

Neither of the lawsuits are yet scheduled for trial.

They are part of a widening circle of lawsuits over the technologies used in smartphones, with Apple, Motorola, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) all suing and being sued by various parties over alleged patent transgressions.