Motorola Inc. said it intends to file a patent infringement lawsuit against Qualcomm Inc., claiming Qualcomm’s new Code Division Multiple Access “Q” phone copies the basic look and functions as well as marketing literature of Motorola’s StarTac wearable phone.
Qualcomm in turn has filed a lawsuit against Motorola in a San Diego federal court for a declaratory judgment ruling that Qualcomm’s products do not infringe any patents held by Motorola.
“We believe that Qualcomm’s Q phone goes beyond simple infringement of patent rights. It is an intentional effort to copy our proprietary StarTac phone design and to confuse consumers,” said Wolf Pavlok, senior vice president and general manager of the Pan American Cellular Subscriber Group for Motorola.
Pavlok said Qualcomm designed the Q phone while giving the appearance of good-faith negotiations with Motorola to obtain licenses under Motorola’s CDMA patents.
“They never gave us any information on what they were after. It was a total surprise to us,” said Pavlok. “Qualcomm led Motorola to believe that it had no intention of copying Motorola’s products, but merely wanted to avoid inadvertent infringement. Motorola informed Qualcomm that those negotiations cannot continue in light of Qualcomm’s behavior and the public display of the Q phone.”
Qualcomm introduced the Q phone last week at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association’s Wireless ’97 show, where Motorola executives saw the product for the first time.
Several similarities exist, said Pavlok. The Q phone has the same features, style and positioning of the keys and antenna. “Numerous people told us it looked just like the StarTac. That’s an unencumbered view by many,” he added.
The Q phone is a 5-ounce unit that incorporates features such as programmable ringers that include a vibration mode, automatic call answer along with an ear jack and optional headset for hands-free calling. Motorola introduced the 3-ounce StarTac last January. The phone’s features include a VibraCall alert feature, a headset jack for hands-free conversations and a smart button that allows for one-handed use of the phone.
“Qualcomm was careful to respect the intellectual property rights of others, and in the course of designing any new product, we seek to ensure that our design does not infringe the rights of any other companies,” said Qualcomm President Harvey White. “In our development of the Q phone, we followed our usual practice of verifying and checking existing patents. Our lawsuit seeks judicial confirmation that our judgment was correct.”
Qualcomm also charged that the two companies entered into patent and technology license agreements in 1990 that preclude Motorola from asserting infringement on the patents. Pavlok said the agreements only include essential patents on CDMA technology as a standard and not on products. Motorola said it has been granted a number of U.S. design patents related to the StarTac phones and several utility patents essential to Interim Standard 95.
Motorola said it initially will seek an injunction to bar Qualcomm from producing and selling the phone.
Qualcomm said it plans to launch the Q phone commercially this summer.
