New York: Apple sues Motorola over smart phone patent
NEW YORK (AP) — Apple is suing Motorola for infringing on patents related to its smart phones.
Apple Inc. said in a filing on Friday that Motorola’s Droid, Cliq, BackFlip and other phones violate its patents related to the iPhone’s touch screen and user interface.
Apple says it wants Motorola Inc. to stop using the patents and is seeking an unspecified amount of damages as well as its attorneys’ fees and costs.
The lawsuit was filed in a federal district court in Wisconsin on Friday.
The suit comes after Motorola sued Apple earlier this month over patent infringement.
Motorola was the second-largest phone maker in 2006, due to the popularity of its Razr clamshell phone, but it was surpassed by others when smart phones became popular.
Meanwhile, Apple Inc.’s iPhones have surged in popularity. The company sold 14.1 million on them in June through September.
Now, Motorola is the seventh-largest phone maker in the world. In North America it’s outstripped by Apple Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry. Motorola’s recent smartphones such as the “Droid” line of phones run on Google Inc.’s Android software.
New York: Lawsuit claims NYC stole 9/11 DNA software secrets
NEW YORK (AP) — A software company that helped identify the remains of 9/11 victims is accusing the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office of handing its secrets over to the FBI.
A Manhattan federal judge has been asked to decide if the lawsuit, filed in March by the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Gene Codes, can go forward, The New York Times reported Saturday. New York City has filed a countersuit claiming Gene Codes didn’t meet its contractual obligations.
Gene Codes’ software, known as the Mass-Fatality Identification System, helped the city analyze and organize the DNA of victims of the terrorist attack. Both sides signed a three-year contract in 2002, for which the city said it paid $13 million.
The company claims that after the contract expired, New York refused to pay it to maintain the system, then gave the FBI proprietary information once the system crashed. The city claims Gene Codes had agreed to upgrade the system for free after the city’s initial investment, and when the company didn’t follow through, it was necessary to move the information to the FBI’s database.
In court filings, the city claimed it had co-created the system by giving the company access to its database of 9/11 victims’ DNA data and giving the company guidance on system updates.
