PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
The mobile arm of electronics giant Motorola announced that it has filed a suit against Microsoft alleging infringement against a raft of 16 patents in a range of Microsoft products.
Yesterday Microsoft launched an action for “excessive and discriminatory” royalties for patents the firm licensed in the Xbox 360 console, Windows software and new smartphone operating system. Motorola said it had invested billions of dollars in research and development and would “do what is necessary to protect our proprietary technology.”
The dispute centers on failed negotiations of a licensing agreement for video encoding patents held by Microsoft with the software giant alleging that Motorola "broke its promises" regarding WiFi and H264 video encoding patents by breaking agreements with umbrella standards organisations for WiFi and H264.
Complicated standards such as H264 and Wi-Fi depend on a pool of patents from a multitude of companies which originally developed the technology on which the standards depend. Microsoft also said that it didn’t believe that the implementations of the technology in Microsoft depended on Motorola patents but it was willing to pay a licence fee anyway if it was “reasonable and non-discriminatory.”
In October Microsoft filed another suit against Motorola alleging patent infringement in the mobile phone maker’s use of the Android operating system. The last year has seen a extraordinary level of intellectual property legal challenges between the world’s technology giants, particularly in the smartphone area with Apple, Nokia and HTC engaged in multi front battles in addition to Motorola and Microsoft.
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