A UK court rules one Motorola patent invalid, undermining the company’s European case against Research in Motion, even as broader IP infringement claims in other jurisdictions continue.
A week after Motorola took its patent case against rival Research in Motion to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the company’s broader intellectual property campaign appears to have been dealt a setback, as a U.K. court ruled at least one of Motorola’s patents to be invalid.
The two companies compete in the highly contested mobile phone market, RIM primarily with its BlackBerry devices and Motorola with a range of devices, including the new Droid phone, based on Google’s Android platform.
The patent in question in the U.K. case involves the transmission of wireless communications, according to records of the European Patent Office.
In a statement, Research in Motion portrayed the U.K. development as a “clear win” for RIM, saying, “Motorola has been trying to compensate for its losses in the marketplace and its inability to sell its mobile division by resorting to court actions that are designed to help negotiate unreasonable royalty rates. RIM has always been willing to pay a reasonable royalty rate for any required license and today’s court ruling is consistent with RIM’s longstanding view that Motorola has simply been acting unreasonably.”
A Motorola spokeswoman today said the company is disappointed with the U.K. ruling and is considering whether to launch an appeal. She also characterized the ruling as an isolated incident.
“This U.K. decision does not impact the complaint Motorola filed against RIM with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in January 2010 or the unresolved patent litigation in the northern district of Texas, which commenced in early 2008,” the spokeswoman told Manufacturing Executive in an e-mail exchange. “Both of these cases involve many more patents than the U.K. case.”
Indeed, Motorola has cast a wide net in what it calls a defense of its R&D and intellectual property. In its late-January appeal to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the company accused RIM of infringing on five patents, covering technologies such as WiFi access, application management, a device’s user interface, and power management. Through the commission, Motorola is seeking a ban on BlackBerry sales in the United States. It also claims that the two companies had licensing agreements for the technologies from 2003 until 2007, but that RIM continued to use the technologies in its devices after the agreements expired.
