Intellectual Ventures Sues Motorola Mobility Over Patent Infringement

Intellectual Ventures filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI) on Thursday, just ahead of the Google Inc. acquisition of the mobile firm.

The suit filed in Delaware alleges that Motorola Mobility infringed on six patents relating to how files are transferred from computers to “entertainment devices.”

Intellectual Ventures is a “patent farm” that has raised $5 billion with a portfolio of more than 35,000 patents. The company focuses on building ideas but not typically creating products from those ideas.

According to Thursdays court filing Intellectual Ventures has already raised more than $2 billion in licensing fees.

The complaint stipulates that the company approached Motorola Mobility about licensing its inventions in January. In December 2010 Intellectual Ventures filed their first lawsuit against Symantec Copr, Trend Micro Inc and seven other firms.

According to Intellectual Ventures Chief Litigation Counsel Melissa Finocchio:

“Intellectual Ventures has successfully signed licensing agreements with many of the top handset manufacturers in the world, and has been in discussions with Motorola Mobility for some time.”

“Unfortunately, we have been unable to reach agreement on a license,” Finocchio wrote. “We have a responsibility to our current customers and our investors to defend our intellectual property rights.”

Motorola Mobility and Google spokespeople are not commenting on the lawsuit at this time.

Do you think patent farms are nothing more than the intellectual predators of the technology sector or do they serve an important purpose in terms of innovation through research and development.