Apple and Google's Motorola Drop 14 Patents From Litigation to Allow Trial to Move Forward

Apple and Google's Motorola have dropped 14 more patents in their lawsuits against each other after Judge Robert N. Scola pushed back the case for being too board.

Initially both companies had asserted 12 patents against the other; however, Judge Scola accused them of using the courts as a business strategy rather than a way to resolve disputes.

Foss Patents reports that the two companies have now cut the number of patents asserted in half.


Yesterday (Monday, July 29 2013) Apple and Motorola filed a stipulation to dismiss a total of 14 patents from the Miami case. Apple had previously dropped two patents (though it reserved some rights subject to what happens on appeal), so the case was down from 24 to 22 patents. Under yesterday's stipulation, Motorola drops eight patents and Apple withdraws six, restoring parity. Subject to the court's (very likely) approval of this stipulation, either party will be asserting four patents going forward. Some of the dismissals are with prejudice and some without. To the extent that there is prejudice, it only bars reassertions of those patents against the accused products/services in this action and those that are no more than colorably different. In other words, if new infringement issues arise in the future relating to the same patents, they can be litigated again.

A detailed list of which patents were dismissed with and without prejudice can be found at the link below...

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