Motorola Sues Apple over iPhone 4S and iCloud, Google Grins With Approval

In a continuation of their ongoing legal battle against Apple, Motorola has filed a new lawsuit against Apple in Florida’s Southern District, claiming that the iPhone 4S and iCloud violate six separate Motorola patents.

As FOSS Patents reports, the recent merger agreement between Google and Motorola Mobility requires that Google grant permission before Motorola can assert any intellectual property rights based on their patents (which now belong to Google). Along these same lines, MacRumors points out that this move is only a step away from direct legal combat between Google and Apple.

All six of the following patents (assembled by FOSS Patents) are claimed to be violated by the iPhone 4S, with four of the patents (‘119, ‘006, ‘531, and ‘161) also applying against iCloud.

• U.S. Patent No. 5,710,987 on a “receiver having concealed external antenna”
• U.S. Patent No. 5,754,119 on a “multiple pager status synchronization system and method”; Motorola is asserting the European equivalent of this patent against Apple in Mannheim, with a decision (that will likely be favorable for Motorola) scheduled for Friday of next week (February 3, 2012)
• U.S. Patent No. 5,958,006 on a “method and apparatus for communicating summarized data”
• U.S. Patent No. 6,101,531 on a “system for communicating user-selected criteria filter prepared at wireless client to communication server for filtering data transferred from host to said wireless client”
• U.S. Patent No. 6,008,737 on an “apparatus for controlling utilization of software added to a portable communication device”
• U.S. Patent No. 6,377,161 on a “method and apparatus in a wireless messaging system for facilitating an exchange of address information”

Many of these patents are extremely basic, such as a device having a concealed external antenna, and a method for exchanging address info through a wireless message. As such, Motorola may be forced to license some or all of these patents to Apple under fair use laws.