Google's Motorola hits Apple with new patent lawsuit

Motorola Mobility today filed a new patent-infringement suit against Apple and seeks to block imports of many foreign-made products such as the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and some Macs.

According to Bloomberg, Motorola, owned by Google, filed the suit in hopes that it could reach an agreement with Apple on their many existing patent disputes. In a statement to CNET, Google said that, "We would like to settle these patent matters, but Apple's unwillingness to work out a license leaves us little choice but to defend ourselves and our engineers' innovations."

The request to block imports into the United States of Apple's hugely successful products is a stark bargaining position, and it's hard to imagine any court granting Motorola's request. "This means Google's strategy to address Android's serious intellectual-property issues -- Android-based devices have already been held by courts in different jurisdictions to infringe, among other things, nine valid Apple patents -- is further escalation in hopes of such developments forcing cross-license agreements or mutual covenants not to sue," wrote blog Foss Patents.

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