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.

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 addressAndroid‘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.

Motorola’s move is just the latest in a multiyear series of back-and-forth patent suits between it and Apple. “The announcement of this new complaint may be driven in part by a desire to demonstrate that Motorola isn’t finished even if its first…complaint against Apple may fail,” Foss Patents wrote. “Another possible motivation on Google’s part is that the acquisition of Motorola Mobility has not been money well spent so far. And a third reason could be that Apple has the upper hand in its dispute with Samsung, and may receive a favorable verdict…which would call into question Google’s ability to bring about the patent peace it promised a year ago when it announced the Motorola deal.”