The latest in a long list of legal targets
The patent company that forced RIM into a more than $600 million settlement is now taking aim at much bigger targets: Apple, Google and other smartphone makers.NTP is a company that acquires and holds patents, but doesn’t build anything, except legal cases against those it charges with infringing its intellectual property inventory.Yesterday, the company filed suit in a U.S. District court, charging Apple, Google, LG Electronics, Microsoft, and Motorola with violating eight of those patents, related to wireless deliver of email to cell phones, according to a report by Dow Jones Newswires. In a long-running legal battle with NTP, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion finally threw in the towel, agreeing to pay a $612.5 million settlement. This is only NTP latest batch of targets: it has filed similar suits against a pack of wireless carriers, including AT&T, T-Mobile USA (part of Deutsche Telekom AG), Verizon, and Vodafone Group. Both Nokia, and email systems vendor Good Technology signed licensing deals with NTP.NTP isn’t alone in the patent combat, Dow Jones notes. Apple recently filed a second complaint against smartphone maker HTC, over patents relating to mobile device technology. HTC had itself filed a countersuit to Apple’s original complaint.
