Microsoft sues Motorola ... again!
Microsoft is suing Motorola again, this time claiming that the company is charging higher than agreed royalties on networking and wireless technologies.
From the filing:
Microsoft brings this action for Motorola’s breach of its commitments to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (“IEEE-SA”), International Telecommunications Union (“ITU”), and their members and affiliates – including Microsoft. Motorola broke its promises to license patents it asserted as related to wireless technologies known as “WLAN” and to video coding technologies generally known as “H.264” under reasonable rates, with reasonable terms, and under non-discriminatory conditions.
Xbox and Windows Phone 7 devices get a lot of coverage in the suit:
64. In willful disregard of the commitments it made to IEEE and the ITU, Motorola has refused to extend to Microsoft a license consistent with Motorola’s promises for any of Motorola’s identified patents. 65. Instead, Motorola is demanding royalty payments that are wholly disproportionate to the royalty rate that its patents should command under any reasonable calculus. Motorola has discriminatorily chosen Microsoft’s Xbox product line and other multi-function, many-featured products and software, such as Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 and products incorporating Microsoft software, for the purpose of extracting unreasonable royalties from Microsoft. 66. By way of non-limiting example, each Xbox device includes substantial software and many computer chips and modules that perform various functions, including to enable Xbox’s core functionality as a video gaming machine. Of those, the Xbox console includes one – an interface provided to Microsoft by third-parties – that allows consumers optionally to connect an Xbox to the Internet using a WLAN connection.
The previous lawsuit Microsoft bought against Motorola claimed that the company infringed on nine patents when it developed Android-powered handsets.
More legal fun and games!