The patent-holding company that won a settlement of more than $600 million from the maker of the BlackBerry said today it has sued six other makers of phones and phone software, AP reported. Patent company NTP Inc. is suing Apple Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., HTC Corp., Motorola Inc. and LG Electronics Inc., claiming infringement of the same patents that were at issue in its suit against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. The suit against RIM ended with a $612.5 million settlement in 2006. Microsoft said it had no comment on the suit. Apple said it will not discuss pending litigation. The other targets did not respond to requests for comment. The lawsuits were filed Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia. NTP was founded by Thomas Campana, an inventor, and Don Stout, a lawyer. Campana worked on wireless e-mail technology in the early 1990s, but never commercialized the technology. He died in 2004. In the aftermath of the RIM settlement, NTP's patents have been re-examined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and many of their claims have been thrown out. But three of the 10 claims that RIM were found to have infringed were upheld, said Stout, NTP's president. «Now we have to move forward,» Stout said. «We hope we can resolve these cases without having to go to trial.» The suit against Apple names its iPhone, iPad, server software and MobileMe information sync service. Taiwan-based HTC makes some of the most sought-after alternatives to the iPhone, like the EVO 4G, sold by Sprint Nextel Corp., and the Google Nexus One, sold by Google. Google and Microsoft don't make smart phones themselves, but NTP's suits cite the software they provide to phone manufacturers. In 2006 and 2007, NTP sued the four largest wireless carriers in the U.S. _ AT&T Inc., Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless _ and phone maker Palm Inc. over the same patents. Those lawsuits have neither been settled nor come to trial.
