BlackBerry maker, Motorola trade lawsuits

By Staff reports

February 20, 2008

Black eye for BlackBerry?

Motorola Inc. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. are suing one another over mobile-phone patents, each claiming that the other is using handset technology without permission.

Research In Motion stated in its suit: “Having suffered losses in the marketplace, Motorola has now resorted to demanding exorbitant royalties from its competitor, RIM, for patents that Motorola claims are essential to various standards for mobile wireless telecommunications."

For its part, Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola claims that Research In Motion “willfully”' infringed the patents, causing “irreparable harm.”' Also, according to the complaint, Motorola wants cash compensation for past infringement of the inventions.

The legal spats come only days after Research In Motion suffered a multi-hour outage of its BlackBerry service in North America.

Per several media reports, court papers reveal that the technology Motorola is suing over includes a method of storing contact information in wireless emails and a way of recognizing incoming phone numbers.

Waterloo, Ontario- based Research In Motion has more than 8 million subscribers in North America for its BlackBerry email device.

Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. are among the carriers that pay Research In Motion a fee of about $6 a month for each subscriber that uses BlackBerry email.

The Motorola suit targets the BlackBerry 8100, 8130, 8320, 8800, 8820 and 8830 models, as well as BlackBerry Exchange Server software.