Apple Hits Motorola with Multi-touch Patent Suit

Apple finally responded to Motorola’s patent lawsuit with two counter suits of its own alleging the cell phone maker is infringing on six multi-touch patents it owns. The two company’s lawsuits follow a breakdown in patent licensing negotiations.

The lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin and allege Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour A555, Devour i1, and Charm.1 all cross over the line by using technology protected by Apple-owned patents. Just as in Apple’s patent battle with HTC, some of the phones run Google’s Android OS.

Motorola filed its own patent lawsuits against Apple in early October alleging the 802.11 Wi-Fi antenna designs, use of Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) technologies, GPRS technologies, proximity sensing, location based services, application management, synchronization, application management, and wireless email implementations used in the Mac, iPhone and iPod touch all violate its patents.

“We have extensively licensed our industry-leading intellectual property portfolio, consisting of tens of thousands of patents in the U.S. and worldwide,” Kirk Dailey, Motorola’s corporate vice president of intellectual property, said after the lawsuits were filed.

Apple is asking the court for a permanent injunction blocking Motorola from selling any products that infringe on its patents, and is also asking for unspecified damages.

[Thanks to Patently Apple for the heads up.]