Last month Microsoft filed a patent infringement action against Motorola over an alleged breach of nine Microsoft patents within the company’s popular Android-based smartphones. This week Microsoft filed another suit against Motorola, this time over Xbox 360 related patents. 

 

According to Reuters, the Redmond-based company claims that Motorola is charging excessive royalties for its patents that deal with wireless and video coding technology, which is employed by the Xbox team. 

 

“Microsoft filed an action today [yesterday] in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola, Inc. for breach of Motorola’s contractual commitments to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to license identified patents related to wireless and video coding technologies under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions. Those commitments are designed to benefit all parties that rely upon these standards, and Microsoft has been harmed by Motorola’s failure to honor them in recent demand letters seeking royalties from Microsoft,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Cnet.

 

Motorola’s lawyers seem to be quit busy at the moment with Apple countersuing Motorola recently also over alleged patent violations. These relate to the iPhone’s touch-screen and user interface (UI) and Motorola apparently infringed upon these within a selection of its mobile phones that include the Motorola Droid (Milestone in South Africa).