Apple sues Motorola over touch screen patents

Following a lawsuit and U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) complaint filed by Motorola Mobility against Apple last month, Apple has filed a pair of patent infringement lawsuits against Motorola and Motorola Mobility. The suits, which name the Motorola Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour, and Charm as potentially infringing products, center around a handful of Apple patents related to multi-touch technology. According to Patently Apple, the suits specifically reference Apple patents covering an ellipse fitting for multi-touch surfaces, a multipoint touchscreen, an object-oriented system locator system, a touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics, a method and apparatus for displaying and accessing control and status information in a computer system, and support for custom user-interaction elements in a graphical, event-driven computer system. Apple is seeking a judgment that Motorola has directly infringed, induced infringement, and/or contributed to the infringement of one or more claims of the listed patents, a judgement blocking Motorola or its partners from further infringement, and damages.