‘Rockstar’ patent war: Microsoft and Apple sue Google

1 Nov, 2013 14:27 / Updated 11 years ago

The Rockstar consortium made up of Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, Ericsson and Sony, is taking aim at Samsung, HTC, and Google for alleged patent infringement.

Rockstar filed a case related to search advertising patents, and is suing Google’s hardware manufacturing partners - LG, Asus, Huawei, ZTE, and Pantech – for devices that run Android.

Rockstar bought up 6,000 patents worth $2.5 billion from Nortel, a Canadian telecommunications company, when it went bankrupt in 2009.

Google bid, but lost the auction to own the Nortel patents.

"Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe,” the claim says.

“Pretty much anybody out there is infringing,” according to John Veschi, Rockstar’s CEO, Wired reported.

“It would be hard for me to envision that there are high-tech companies out there that don’t use some of the patents in our portfolio,” Veschi added.