Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Mapping Patents

jfruh writes "The mobile patent wars continue, with two of the world's biggest tech companies about to blunder into direct conflict. Microsoft holds a number of patents that it claims give it rights over mobile map applications that overlay data from multiple databases (map info from one database and store location info from another, for instance). Many Android vendors already pay Redmond licensing fees for their mapping apps; now Redmond is going to court in Germany to sue one of the holdouts: Motorola Mobility, which is of course owned by Google."

Re:Obviousness

[PPH]

Evans & Sutherland [wikipedia.org] was building tactical displays for the defense department that did this in the 1970s and 1980s.

This explains why Apple dropped google maps

[walterbyrd]

PJ from Groklaw:

There really does seem to be coordination between Microsoft and Apple to destroy Google and Android or at least control it and get money from it. Blech. Any legal system that would allow the best maps service to be blocked so an inferior one can get money for a patent needs to be changed, because it has forgotten totally about the public interest. Shame on Microsoft. And shame on Apple.