A week after Motorola took its patent case against rival Research in Motion to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the company’s broader intellectual property campaign appears to have been dealt a setback, as a U.K. court ruled at least one of Motorola’s patents to be invalid.
The two companies compete in the highly contested mobile phone market, RIM primarily with its BlackBerry devices and Motorola with a range of devices, including the new Droid phone, based on Google’s Android platform.
The patent in question in the U.K. case involves the transmission of wireless communications, according to records of the European Patent Office.
In a statement, Research in Motion portrayed the U.K. development as a “clear win” for RIM, saying, “Motorola has been trying to compensate for its losses in the marketplace and its inability to sell its mobile division by resorting to court actions that are designed to help negotiate unreasonable royalty rates. RIM has always been willing to pay a reasonable royalty rate for any required license and today’s court ruling is consistent with RIM’s longstanding view that Motorola has simply been acting unreasonably.”