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Motorola XOOM hit with lawsuit ahead of its launch

It's not a good start for a product when it's hit by a lawsuit on the day it is set to be launched.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

It's not a good start for a product when it's hit by a lawsuit on the day it is set to be launched.

It sweems that the Xoom Corporation isn't happy that Motorola chose the same name for its Android-based tablet.

This by Florian Mueller:

Yesterday the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius filed a trademark suit with the US District Court for the Northern District of California (where Xoom Corporation is based) against Motorola Mobility and affiliated legal entities, asking the court on Xoom Corporation's behalf not only for a permanent injunction but also for a "temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction". Should that interim relief be granted to Xoom Corporation, it would disrupt the launch of Motorola's iPad competitor, which runs on Honeycomb, the latest (and tablet-optimized) version of Google's Android mobile operating system.

Xoom isn't holding anything back either in its attack on Motorola:

Motorola's alleged trademark infringement is described as "willful and intentional conduct" for which Xoom Corporation believes to be entitled to "treble damages".

So is this about making a quick buck? Mueller doesn't think so:

A company of that nature and stature is less likely than a smaller one to file a suit against a major player like Motorola only to make a quick buck in exchange for dropping a pointless complaint. It's possible that Xoom Corporation really wants Motorola to rename its tablet computer and wouldn't settle even for a check over several million dollars. Xoom Corporation may want to defend its exclusive use of that brand.

Complaint here.

Motorola must really want to use that Zoom name for its tablet.

Stay tuned to find out where this goes.

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