Microsoft sues U.S. Customs office to force Google phone ban

Here's another Microsoft-Motorola Mobility battle brewing, but we have a new party in the mix: U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The Windows maker filed a lawsuit on Friday at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington against the federal agency.

Notably, Microsoft also named also named Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in the complaint.

According to reports, Microsoft filed the complaint to force U.S. Customs to follow through on a previous ban against the import of mobile phones made by Google-owned Motorola.

That ban, issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission, is supposed to be in effect through at least April 2018.

However, Microsoft is saying that Google and the U.S. Customs office colluded in secret meetings to allow imports to continue.

There are actually a number of these phone bans floating around right now.

Earlier this week, Apple pleaded to the ITC to hold off on a sales ban that would see older iPhone and iPad models pulled from shelves until a court evaluates the appeal.

That request sprouted up just over a month after the ITC issued a limited import ban on some Apple products following a ruling that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company infringed on a Samsung-owned patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,706,348.

Apple could still be in the luck though because the final ruling could be overturned by the Federal Circuit Court or the White House.

The likely next step for the Microsoft-U.S. Customs-Google/Motorola case is appeal over the aforementioned ITC ban, scheduled for August 6.

via Bloomberg