Apple launching sidelong attacks against Google with new lawsuits in US

Apple is once again circling back to the US in its legal patent squabbles. The company has filed a new infringement suit against the Samsung Galaxy Nexus covering four features of the Android 4 operating system, and another lawsuit against Motorola over Motorola’s legal actions against Apple in Germany. Given Google’s imminent acquisition of Motorola, both suits constitute a home-turf blow at Google and its mobile business.

The suit against the Galaxy Nexus covers four patents that Apple has filed for, three of which were filed in the last few months. The first, older patent covers ways for the OS to mark up content in one context, like phone numbers in an e-mail, and open a new app from that content, like a phone application by clicking on the phone number. Apple successfully sued HTC for using this functionality in its phones in December 2011. The remaining three patents relate to Siri and the OS’s use of unified search, the use of slide-to-unlock, and word completion for text entry, respectively.

The strangest thing about the case is the target: a single phone, and not either of the companies involved in making it. Still, the suit is a closer strike at Google than Samsung, since the patents deal with software features that will, for the most part, extend to every phone with Android 4.

The second lawsuit is a continuation of Apple and Motorola’s slapfight in Germany, where Motorola asked that Apple pay a 2.25 percent royalty on each iPhone and iPad sold for use of Motorola’s 3G-related patents. A judge in Germany ruled in Apple’s favor. Now Apple is suing Motorola in the US over the 3G patents, as noted by Reuters, claiming that Motorola’s actions in Germany violated one of Motorola’s patent licensing agreements with Qualcomm. Apple claims that as a customer of Qualcomm (its chips are inside the iPhone 4S), the company is a third-party beneficiary of the Motorola-Qualcomm agreement, so Motorola shouldn’t be allowed to sue Apple over the relevant 3G materials.

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