Patent assertion entity Rockstar Consortium is suing tech companies Asustek, Google, HTC,rnHuawei, LG Electronics, Pantech, Samsung and ZTE for patent infringement. Rockstar filed suit againstrnthe companies in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas, Thursday. The PAE, which Apple, BlackBerry,rnEricsson, Microsoft and Sony jointly own, formed in 2011 specifically to manage a portfolio of patents itrnbought for $4.5 billion from Nortel. Rockstar said Google infringed seven of its Nortel patents through itsrnpurchase of Motorola Mobility, which followed its own losing bid for the Nortel patents. Google wasrnaware that some of Motorola Mobility’s technology violated the Nortel patents, and continued to infringernanyway, Rockstar said in court filings. Google declined to comment. Rockstar’s joint complaint withrnsubsidiary MobileStar Technologies claims Samsung violated seven of its patents, including U.S. Patentsrn6,037,937 (a navigation tool for graphical user interfaces) and 6,128,298 (an Internet Protocol filter). AnrnLG spokesman declined to comment. HTC, Samsung and the other defendants in the Rockstar lawsuitsrndid not comment. Charles Duan, Public Knowledge’s director-Patent Reform Project, said in a statementrnthat the lawsuits showed Rockstar is a “privateer” — a PAE that companies use to go after their competitors.rnThough Rockstar acknowledges its owners are all major tech companies, it “operates at arms'rnlength,” Duan said. “This allows Rockstar's owners to disclaim its actions while benefiting from them,rnshields them from counter-suit, and allows Rockstar to disregard any promises by its owners not to engagernin this exploitative behavior.” Many of the patents at issue in the suit “appear to be overly broad and ofrnlow quality,” he said. “It is likely that its attempt to hobble its owners’ competitors in the courtroom willrnultimately fail. But it will be expensive to reach that point, and whatever the outcome of the litigation,rnconsumers will bear the cost.”
展开▼
