Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was given a second chance to go after Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI) (which is owned by Google). A ruling from the U.S. court weighed in on a previous decision made by the United States International Trade Commission and reversed some of its findings.
This decision means that two multi-touch patents come back into question. And that means Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) could easily go after those patents again as they’ve been striving to get some of their competitor’s phones off the market. According to CNET, Apple originally lodged its ITC complaint against Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI) in October 2010, alongside two lawsuits. In its complaints, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) alleged that Motorola’s Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, and a handful of other smartphones and related software violated several of its patents. Apple’s complaint followed one from Motorola that claimed Apple was violating 18 of its patents with its smartphones and other mobile devices.
Apple prepared to go nuclear on droids
The ITC discovered that there was zero infringement and so they closed the case last March. Unsurprisingly, Apple made an appeal about a month later. This ruling comes prior to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s separate pending argument against Samsung. Just last year, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) lost a patent case to Apple and ended up owing over $1 billion in damages.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) takes every opportunity they can to fight Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG). The tech giant’s late co-founder Steve Jobs confessed to his biographer, “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
Google acquired Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI) two years ago for $12.5 billion in hopes that it would protect Android from litigation because of Motorola’s patent portfolio. Only time will tell what happens if and when Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) makes their second move against Motorola.
