Hidden Phone Antenna Patent Among Many in New Motorola Lawsuit Against Apple

by

Don’t the patent wars involving Apple, Samsung, and Motorola Mobility feel like they’re being waged almost daily?

Motorola Mobility filed the latest salvo with a new patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in a Florida federal court (see below).

The new case accuses Apple of, among other things, violating its patent for a "Receiver Having Concealed External Antenna." Motorola Mobility claims that it’s got a lock on all mobile phones with hidden antennas.

Really? Have they sued every mobile device manufacturer over this claim? When was the last time that you actually saw a mobile phone with a visible antenna attached?

The lawsuit claims that Apple is infringing a total of six Motorola Mobility patents. Here they are:

  • Receiver having concealed external antenna (Patent No. 5,710,987)
  • Multiple pager status synchronization system and method (Patent No. 5,754,119)
  • Method and Apparatus for Communicating Summarized Data (Patent No. 5,958,006) the ‘006 patent.
  • System for communicating user-selected criteria filter prepared at wireless client to communication server for filtering data transferred from host to said wireless client (Patent No. 6,101,531)
  • Apparatus for Controlling Utilization of Software Added to a Portable Communication Device (Patent No. 6,008,737
  • Method and Apparatus in a Wireless Messaging System for Facilitating an Exchange of Address Information (Patent No. 6,377,161)

Motorola’s suit comes less than two weeks after the U.S. International Trade Commission issued its initial ruling that Motorola’s Droid smartphones do not violate three Apple patents.

You can read Motorola’s newest patent infringement complaint below, and track the case docket here:

Original Complaint for Patent Infringement (Motorola Mobility, Inc. v. Apple, Inc.)