Smartphone Patent Battles: Who fight against Whom

Smartphone players continuously introducing new products into the market to compete their rivals. This fight not only taking place in selling their product,it continues suing one another for Patent rights (Intellectual Property). Since 2006, the number of mobile phone-related patent complaints has increased by 15-20% annually. Here is a list,Who has been suing Whom.

Nokia’s Lawsuit

Apple ( 2G,3G and Wifi wireless) infringe a patent that involes “combining multiple functionality of the camera on the same chip”.iPhone infringes Nokia’s patent (that saves space in the device) that “combines the antenna around the speaker”. As a bonus a patent around power saving is mentioned.

Samsung (LCD Price Fixing).Nokia claimed that Samsung and at least six other display makers unlawfully conspired to raise the price of displays above a competitive market level. Nokia is seeking unspecified damages and an injunctive relief.

Qualcomm (Anti-competitive practice and patents on mobile downloads)

Apple’s Lawsuit

Nokia (Speech coding and Security,Wireless Data).Apple’s complaint specifically cites Nokia models S60, E71 and 5310.Patents relate to data and voice coding, encryption and security.Nokia’s 13 alleged infringements against the iPhone: power-saving software, GUI patterns and colors, and syncing configurations.

HTC -March 2, 2010,Apple filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.

KODAK’s Lawsuit

Alleging that Apple,RIM, both infringed digital imaging technology patented by the company.

LG and Samsung ( sued for image storage and Movie previews)

Sony Ericsson -suedor creating electronic cameras that store images digitally

HTC’s Lawsuit

May 12, 2010,HTC counter sues Apple for User interface. “As the innovator of the original Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone Edition in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008, HTC believes the industry should be driven by healthy competition and innovation that offer consumers the best, most accessible mobile experiences possible,” said a statement from Jason Mackenzie, HTC’s vice president of North America. “We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones.”

RIM’s Lawsuit

RIM accused Motorola of violating 9 RIM patents. It also accused Motorola for Anti-competitive pricing.

Microsoft’s Lawsuit

Nov 2010,Motorolo sued by Microsoft over passing ActiveSync, calendar/contact management, app notifications about signal strength and battery power, and storage memory management.It was sued for nine Microsoft’s Patents.

Elan’s Lawsuit

Elan Microelectronics claiming infringement on two patents — both involving multitouch.It’s also seeking an injunction against Apple to prevent it from selling the MacBook, iPhone, and iPod Touch until everything gets legally sorted.

Motorola’s Lawsuit

October 06, 2010 – Accused Apple in a lawsuit of violating 18 patents. Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iTouch and certain Mac computers infringe Motorola patents. Motorola Mobility also filed patent infringement complaints against Apple.It includes wireless communication technologies, such as WCDMA (3G), GPRS, 802.11 and antenna design, and key smartphone technologies including wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization.

Microsoft – November 11, 2010 Microsoft is infringing on 16 of its patents through its PC and Server software products, Windows Mobile software, and Xbox products.

Xerox’s Lawsuit

February 23, 2010 ,Two Internet search giants are being sued by Xerox, claims it owns the patents to search technology.ie., operating products and services that infringe on two Xerox patents for organizing documents.

Oracle’s Lawsuit

August 16, 2010. Oracle is suing Google over the use of Java in Android and that may change everything about Java and open-source development.

Qualcomm’s Lawsuit

Nokia (Over 3G Technology)