Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Mapping Patents 57
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:I've got a solution for all these software pate (Score:5, Interesting)
"No software patents in Europe" (Score:3, Interesting)
As soon as someone sells hardware along with the software, software patents turn into hardware patents and then you can sue even in Europe. It's magic!
Re:Why Germany? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone know why two American companies are suing each other in Germany? Are these German patents?
Two reasons that I can think of...
1. The patent in question is european [freepatentsonline.com] (although it appears to be also filed as a US patent [freepatentsonline.com] as well).
2. The law firm they are using, Bardehle Pagenberg [bardehle.com], has apparently won more injunctions against Android than any other law firm in the world.
AFAIK, the patent in question actually came into Microsoft's possession after it purchased Multimap.com [wikipedia.org] (a UK based company) back in 2007, which jives with the european flavor of this dispute.