Motorola sues Apple for 18 alleged patent infringements

Motorola is the latest company to file a patent lawsuit against Apple, suggesting in court that Apple has infringed on proprietary Motorola technologies in its mobile devices. Motorola itself filed papers about 18 different infringements. Its subsidiary Motorola Mobility Inc filed three more, as well as a trade complaint regarding technologies including a system to distribute message traffic and various systems like that.

Truth be told, this is all pretty esoteric -- Microsoft just recently sued Motorola for the same type of thing, and technology patents are often so vague and far-reaching that I suspect none of this is ever meant to actually reach court. Apple's lawyers will determine what the settlement should be (and Apple will probably pay it), and Motorola might even use that money to pay off Microsoft. It's possible that this could blow up into a bigger argument (depending on what Motorola wants to get out of this), but at this point, it all just seems more like corporate posturing than anything else.

So instead, let's all take this time to remember Motorola and Apple's disastrous collaboration, the Rokr, and what a mess all of that was. Man, it's hard to believe just how terrible cell phones were before the iPhone came along.

[via Slashdot]