With Android poised on supplanting iOS as the dominant mobile operating system in the west, it looks like another company has come forward with a lawsuit against the search engine giant (who is currently in the midst of battling Oracle).
Gemalto NV sued Google Inc. and phonemakers HTC Corp., Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., claiming the Android mobile-phone operating system used its technology without permission.
The manufacturer of digital-security technology filed the patent-infringement suit against the companies in Texas federal court on Oct. 22, according to the complaint. Gemalto said the development platform for Android improperly includes its Java Card technology, which allows software written in Java and other “high-level programming languages†to run on mobile phones. (Bloomberg)
Although it’s not surprising that Germalto NV is suing Google (who truth be told receives a lot of lawsuits in the US, many of them frivolous), Germalto NV’s strategy of suing manufactors seems to be aimed at thwarting Android’s expansion by scarring off potential partners.
Germalto NV surprisingly isn’t going after other manufacturers (like Dell) who also make Android smartphones (although truth be told HTC, Motorola and Samsung are the top 3 selling Android devices in the US).
While it’s doubtful that this legal squabble will thwart Android’s path towards global domination, Germalto NV’s latest lawsuit could slow down adoption by smaller manufacturers (the latter who probably lack the money to burn on patent attorneys).
Originally posted on October 25, 2010 @ 4:22 pm