Japan's FujiFilm sues Motorola over phone patents

The case is the latest in a string of patent lawsuits in the mobile telecom industry

Martyn Williams (IDG News Service)
13 July, 2012 23:06
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Japan's FujiFilm is suing Google's Motorola Mobility subsidiary over four patents associated with digital camera and photo technology in cellphones.

The lawsuit has its roots in April 2011, when FujiFilm says it first notified Motorola that it believed the cellphone maker was infringing on the four patents. The companies held a number of face-to-face meetings, according to FujiFilm. The matter was apparently not resolved to FujiFilm's liking and that led to this week's lawsuit.

The patents in question include:

U.S. Patent 6,144,763, which covers the capturing of color pictures by a cellphone and their conversion to monochrome images;

U.S. Patent 6,915,119, which addresses a "telephone and data transmitting method." FujiFilm alleges a number of Motorola devices infringe on this patent through their use of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi as a means to communicate with a computer or other device;

U.S. Patent 7,327,886, covering the facial detection system included in some Motorola cellphones; and

U.S. Patent 5,734,427, concerning the processing of a high-resolution image into a lower-resolution image for display on an electronic viewfinder.

The lawsuit alleges a number of Motorola handsets infringe some or all of the patents, including the Droid X, X2, 2 Global, Bionic, 3, Pro; and the Atrix 2, Electrify, Photon 4G, XPRT, Defy, Cliq 2 and Titanium handsets.

In its complaint, FujiFilm asks the court to find infringement in its favor, for Motorola to pay damages to be decided at trial and for Motorola to pay FujiFilm's legal costs.

FujiFilm, Motorola Mobility and Google could not immediately be reached for comment.

The case, number 12-03587, was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in San Jose.

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com