Microsoft gains ground in patent feud with Motorola over texting

The tech world seems to be busy with lawsuits raining down from the high heavens between all the big players in the business. Patent warfare over intellectual property rights is appearing to be the new battle lingo for a form of new age corporate espionage and it’s getting to be quite a trending topic. Another major lawsuit in progress is between Motorola and Microsoft. The most recent news on that front spoke of Microsoft hitting Motorola where it hurts and managing to secure a ban on some of their devices in the U.S.  

The latest news was in the form of a German regional court ruling in one of the hearings on Thursday that Motorola Mobility did indeed infringe on Microsoft patents by offering the option of sending longer text in a batch of several messages on their mobile phones. "We're pleased the court agreed today that Motorola has infringed Microsoft's intellectual property, and we hope Motorola will be willing to join other Android device makers by taking a license to our patents," Microsoft said in a statement, referring to Google's Android operating system for mobile phones.

Score one more for Microsoft

Motorola, which was only recently bought by Google after another long drawn legal battle with courts, said that they expected a written decision from the court on June 1 and only upon review would they explore all options, which would include filing an appeal. The raging courtroom battle between these two pioneers in their fields has been going on for quite some time now in courts, across the globe. 

In another case, the same regional court in the city of Munich on Thursday rejected a complaint by Microsoft against Motorola Mobility's use of a software feature, called program localization. Motorola Mobility, in turn, is currently suing Microsoft in the U.S. over features in the Xbox gaming console. In fact, Motorola actually scored on this round and a German court ruled that Microsoft, in this case, had infringed on Motorola's patents. At that juncture, Motorola had succeeded in placing a ban on Microsoft for the sale of the Xbox and Windows 7 OS in the German market. The second blow to Microsoft, on the same grounds came from their home turf where a U.S. judge also found the company to have infringed on Motorola’s patents. This was with regards to Motorola Mobility's patents for wireless Internet connection and video compression functions used in the Xbox.

The score is about tied, but with Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola does this mean Motorola will be bringing in some bigger guns? It’s a wait-and-see situation. Stay tuned to this space for more on this topic.