Six smart-phone firms face lawsuit

NEW YORK - The patent-holding firm that won a settlement of more than $600 million from the maker of the BlackBerry said Friday it has sued six other firms in the smart-phone industry.

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 case against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.

The suit against RIM ended with a $612.5 million settlement in 2006. But changes in court practices have reduced NTP's power to win large settlements, and if NTP prevails, it's now likely to receive much less from each defendant.

Microsoft and Apple said they had no comment and the other firms did not respond. The lawsuits were filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

The main threat NTP wielded against RIM was that of a court-ordered halt of BlackBerry sales and the U.S. operation of its e-mail service. But a Supreme Court ruling in 2006, after the RIM settlement, made such injunctions harder to obtain for "nonpracticing entities" such as NTP, which has no commercial products.

That means the defendants have less reason to settle for large amounts, and NTP's hope is that the court will decide that the defendants have to pay it damages and royalties on patent-infringing products, Alexander Poltorak of General Patent Corp. said.