Fujifilm hits Motorola Mobility with patent-infringement lawsuit
Japanese photography giant says it's been trying for more than a year to get the Google subsidiary to license four patents related to digital camera and photography technology.
Japan's Fujifilm has sued Google's Motorola Mobility, claiming that several cell phones and tablets infringe on four of its patents related to digital camera and photography technology.
Fujifilm, which filed its lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said its filing came after attempts to negotiate a licensing deal with Motorola failed. The Japanese photo giant said it notified Motorola in April 2011 of its belief that the handset maker was infringing on its patents and held face-to-face meetings with Motorola representatives. However, those discussions failed to produce a licensing deal and infringing behavior continues, Fujifilm said.
The four patents cited in the lawsuit:
- U.S. Patent 6,144,763, which covers converting captured color images to monochrome images.
- U.S. Patent 6,915,119, which describes a method in which devices communicate with each other over a telephone network.
- U.S. Patent 7,327,886, which covers facial detection in digital photography.
- U.S. Patent 5,734,427, which covers a process for allowing high-resolution images captured by an image sensor to be displayed on a low-resolution view finder.
Fujifilm alleges that several handsets and tablets infringe on some or all of the patents, including the Droid X, Razr, Razr Maxx, Droid Bionic, and Xoom. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, as well as attorneys' fees.
CNET has contacted Motorola Mobility parent company Google for comment and will update this report when we learn more.
Motorola scored a patent win of sorts late last month when a federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by Apple that accused Motorola of infringing on some of the iPhone maker's patents. The judge said that neither side managed to prove damages and dismissed the case with prejudice, saying that neither company should be allowed to refile.