On July 9, NTP sued Apple, Google, Microsoft, HTC, LG and Motorola over patents on wireless email, hoping to extract the same royalty rate it got from BlackBerry-maker RIM in 2006. A month later, Oracle sued Apple, the first step to enforcing its IP rights in Java since it acquired Java-maker Sun Microsystems in January 2010.
Ron Epstein, managing partner of LAWpotential and NPT's licensing counsel, described its case as "putting your marker on the table". He told Managing IP that, despite the suit, the Virginia company is "willing to be reasonable and offer a licence on reasonable terms".
NTP owns a number of patents for wireless inventions developed by Thomas Campana. The patents were recently re-examined by the USPTO, with only 67 claims out of more than 2,000 being upheld in December 2009. In June NTP filed a petition with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to...