Grant Gross
Senior Writer

Patent-licensing firm files second lawsuit against Motorola Mobility

news
Jun 19, 20132 mins

Intellectual Ventures says lawsuits against Motorola and Capital One are necessary to protect its intellectual property

Intellectual Ventures, a large patent-licensing firm, has filed a second patent-infringement lawsuit against Motorola Mobility while its first patent lawsuit is still pending in a Delaware count.

The patent-licensing firm filed its second lawsuit against Motorola in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the company announced Wednesday. The second lawsuit alleges that Motorola, owned by Google, has infringed seven different patents than the six named in the Delaware lawsuit.

[ Simon Phipps tells it like it is: Why software patents are evil. | Stay ahead of the key tech business news with InfoWorld’s Today’s Headlines: First Look newsletter. | Read Bill Snyder’s Tech’s Bottom Line blog for what the key business trends mean to you. ]

Intellectual Ventures “has been unable to reach an agreement with Motorola” in the Delaware case, the company said in a statement.

The company also filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against banking firm Capital One in Virginia, Intellectual Ventures said.

The lawsuits “are a necessary step in protecting our patent rights and fulfilling our commitments to our investors, inventors and licensees,” Intellectual Ventures said.

Among the patents covered in the second lawsuit are ones related to methods to create and transmit information, including an address to further information; a system for ordering data messages with differing priority levels; and touchscreen systems.

A spokeswoman for Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment on the new lawsuit.

Some critics have accused Intellectual Ventures of being a so-called patent troll, but the company disputed that characterization.

“We’re fighting to stop patent trolls’ use of low-quality patents to extort money from companies that actually innovate and make real things,” the company said in a statement. “We support bipartisan efforts by the White House and Congress to end these kinds of abuses.”

In addition to buying and licensing patents, Intellectual Ventures also employs scientists and engineers working on inventions in several fields, including agriculture, computer hardware, life sciences, medical devices, semiconductors, and software, the company said. The company files hundreds of patent applications every year, it said.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant’s e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

Grant Gross

Grant Gross, a senior writer at CIO, is a long-time IT journalist who has focused on AI, enterprise technology, and tech policy. He previously served as Washington, D.C., correspondent and later senior editor at IDG News Service. Earlier in his career, he was managing editor at Linux.com and news editor at tech careers site Techies.com. As a tech policy expert, he has appeared on C-SPAN and the giant NTN24 Spanish-language cable news network. In the distant past, he worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota and the Dakotas. A finalist for Best Range of Work by a Single Author for both the Eddie Awards and the Neal Awards, Grant was recently recognized with an ASBPE Regional Silver award for his article “Agentic AI: Decisive, operational AI arrives in business.”

More from this author