NTP said on Thursday that it had filed patent infringement lawsuits against several of the world’s top mobile phone manufactures including Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), HTC (TW: 2498) and LG Electronics (KS: 066570).
The privately held company had previously won a $600 million from a settlement with BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (TO: RIM) in 2006 after a long legal battle. Back in December, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office validated 67 of NTP’s claims in four patents in the RIM litigation and said RIM had infringed three claims.
The suits were filed on Thursday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The company said that it had no other options because the companies were making use of its patents without a license. The eight patents mentioned in the suit related to the delivery of email “over wireless communications systems.”
Email on mobile devices has become an essential component of modern smart-phones which have become much more like handheld computers than phones which were released just a few years ago. Apple has a strong foothold in the smart-phone market with the iPhone, but Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been gained significant ground with its Android mobile-operating system. Microsoft has languished as the company has yet failed to build a solid multi-touch phone, but plans to release a new platform called “Windows Phone 7” later in the year.
NTP also announced on Friday that it had filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to overturn the patent office’s remaining rejections of NTP patent claims.
