Motorola Inc. on Friday accused smart phone maker Research in Motion (RIM) Ltd. of selling devices that infringe on five Motorola patents.
The complaint, filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), could result in RIM being banned from importing and selling in the United States its BlackBerry mobile phones, which are increasingly popular among makers of communication and data-sharing applications.
Motorola contends that RIM is illegally using “early-stage innovations developed by Motorola,” the company said in a statement. According to Motorola, the patents apply to technologies such as Wi-Fi access, application management, user interface, and power management. Motorola requested that the ITC initiate an investigation into RIM’s use of the technologies and issue an exclusion order which would bar RIM from importing the alleged infringing products. (Motorola did not identify the specific RIM devices that would be affected.)
RIM officials declined to comment on the Motorola complaint today.