Week 8 Blog #2: Motorola vs Intellectual Ventures

Motorola Mobility was found by a US jury to have ripped off an Intellectual Ventures-owned technology patent although they were fortunate to have a second infringement claim against them dropped.

The panel of peers ruled that a range of Moto smartphones in 2011 infringed US patent 7,810,144, which describes a process in which files are uploaded, authenticated by a third party to check the identity of the sender, and then passed on to other devices, but did not infringe US patent 7,409,540, which describes a TCP/IP packet-centric wireless point-to-multi-point transmission system architecture. Intellectual Ventures, known in the industry for its patent-hoarding methods, accused Motorola Mobility of using the technology in a dozen handset models without permission as part of its ongoing war against Lenovo-owned Moto.

It was the second time the two companies faced off in court after the first round ended in February 2014 due to mistrial after jurors could not agree on a verdict. Intellectual Ventures recently scored a $17 million win against Symantec and while it licenses its portfolio out to companies such as HTC and Samsung, it has recently become more well known for suing tech companies who might be infringing on its intellectual property. Intellectual Ventures argues that what separates them from patent trolls is that the company does not file frivolous lawsuits. Nonetheless, Intellectual Ventures shows the clear signs of a company that burdens innovation by using patents they buy to pursue lawsuits instead of building any products.