Phone patent litigation

In 2010, there was an explosion of litigation between companies developing third-generation mobile phones.

As well as filing litigation in the courts, many cases were filed with the United States International Trade Commission to block imports and exports. No such blocks have yet been put in place (as of August 2010).

As well as filing a lawsuit, many patent holders also file a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission to ban the import of the product in question.

Why so much litigation?

Some factors are obvious: high-tech phones are a new, growing market.

Another factor might be that this new market mixes together software and hardware companies that haven't dealt with each other directly before. For this reason, the companies involved don't have existing patent non-aggression pacts with each other.

Lawsuits filed

Oldest first:

• NTP v. RIM (2000, USA), settled in 2006 for US$612.5 million, this case may have inspired later cases
• Apple v. HTC, early 2010
  • (Plus counter suit in May 2010)
• Nokia v. Apple, 2010-2011
  • Settled June 2011 with Apple paying a one time amount and ongoing royalties to Nokia.
• Eric Gould Bear v. Apple, May 2010
• Oracle v. Google, August 2010
• Microsoft v. Motorola, October 2010
  • (Plus counter suit on 11 November 2010)
• Motorola v. Apple (2010, USA)
  • (Plus counter-suit on 30 Oct 2010)
• No law suit, but HTC pays fees to Microsoft.
• Gemalto v. phone manufacturers (2010, USA)
• Samsung v. Apple (2011, USA)

Related pages on ESP Wiki

• List of lawsuits - longer, general list
• Patent non-aggression pacts
• Blocks competing software, reducing choice
• GSM - patents prevent computers from making phonecalls

External links

• What the mobile patent fight is all about, 3 May 2010, InfoWorld
• Bear and Monkey smack Apple with patent suit, 15 May 2010, The Register
• MPEG-LA-owned Patent Troll Sues Smartphone Makers, 26 Aug 2010, OSNews
• NTP charges Apple, Google, others infringed on patents, 9 July 2010, ComputerWorld
• A Bird's Eye View of the HTC/Nokia/Apple Patent Litigations, 29 Aug 2010, Groklaw
• Android caught in a crossfire of patents, 3 Oct 2010, by Florian Mueller
• Apple iPhone app developers hit by patent claims, 13 May 2011, Guardian
• More app developers sued over patent claims, 18 May 2011, Guardian

Diagrams of all the litigation

• Who’s Suing Whom In The Telecoms Trade?, 6 Oct 2010, informationisbeautiful.net
• Microsoft sues Motorola over Android – and all the other mobile lawsuits, visually, 4 Oct 2010, Guardian
• An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits, 4 Mar 2010, blogs.nytimes
• Motorola asks ITC, two federal courts to throw book at Apple, 6 Oct 2010, Ars Technica