Google, Apple, and more face lawsuits for infringing on mobile patents

Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft, and Motorola are all on the receiving end of lawsuits for allegedly infringing on eight patents related to the delivery of email over wireless communications systems held by patent-company NTP. The lawsuits name both hardware and software products, such as Apple’s iPhone, iPad, server software, and MobileMe service.

Add this round of lawsuits to previous legal action by NTP against the likes of Research in Motion, Palm, and telecom carriers AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon, and it’s tempting to liken the company to another one bearing a three-letter name and that appears to produce nothing other than lawsuits: namely, SCO.

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But whereas SCO has failed repeatedly to make a convincing case that it holds patents to key Unix technologies (yet refuses to back down), NTP already nabbed a key patent victory: RIM agreed in 2006 to pay NTP $612.5 million to settle patent infringement claims and to license NTP’s technology. Moreover, according to NTP, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Board of Patent Appeals has ruled 67 of the company’s claims in four patents are valid, including three claims that RIM was found to have infringed.

Notably absent from the list of lawsuit targets is Nokia, which has a licensing agreement with NTP.

This article, “Google, Apple, and more face lawsuits for infringing on mobile patents,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.