Patent wars erupt as Google & co sued

Google and several affiliated tech companies have been sued for patent infringement by Rockstar Consortium, a joint venture owned by Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony.

Rockstar is suing Google, ASUSTek, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech and ZTE over patents it acquired from the now-defunct Nortel.

The patents in question come from a set that Rockstar won when it outbid Google in a bidding war for some of Nortel’s assets in 2011.

Rockstar is now claiming that after losing the bid for the patents mentioned in the suit, “Google has infringed and continues to infringe” the patents.

Rockstar also launched a suit against Samsung.

According to the WSJ, the suits accuse most of the defendants of violating patents involving smartphone designs and features. The legal action also targets parts of Google’s web search tech, the website said.

Most or all of the defendants have at some point used Google’s Android in devices they’ve produced, while most of Rockstar’s members have thrown their support behind other mobile OSs.

The notable exception is Sony, whose mobile subsidiary Sony Mobile Communications (formerly Sony Ericsson) has produced Android-based phones.

Rockstar CEO John Veschi said the legal action “really has nothing to with Apple or Microsoft”, and that Rockstar made the decision to sue - not its member companies.

Interestingly, BlackBerry made what may have been an attempt to publicly distance itself from the litigation. A spokeswoman from the company told the WSJ: “Although BlackBerry owns shares in Rockstar … BlackBerry does not have the voting power to control Rockstar’s actions with respect to litigations.”

Rockstar is seeking injunctions and unspecified damages.