RIM Sues Motorola over Patents

The sheer nastiness of what is about to happen could become something of legend. The first few grenades have been lobbed back and forth between Canada and Illinois. First Motorola jacked up licensing fees for its patents for things like using WiFi on a handheld device and now RIM is suing and saying these moves are unreasonable and moreover Motorola has infringed on one of RIM’s patents which covers a device which has a keyboard optimized for use with the thumbs.

RIM’s complaint alludes to Motorola’s setbacks and argues that Motorola boosted its royalty demands in response to the "declining fortunes of its handset business" along with the fact that RIM has become a "more substantial competitor in the wireless market." As of December, RIM had 12 million BlackBerry subscribers world-wide, up from seven million in December 2006.

"Having suffered losses in the marketplace, Motorola has now resorted to demanding exorbitant royalties from its competitor, RIM, for patents that Motorola claims are essential to various standards for mobile wireless telecommunications," RIM said in the complaint.

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