Google Inc and its Motorola Mobility unit struck back on Wednesday
against BT Group Plc, filing patent lawsuits against the British
telecommunications group more than a year after BT launched its own
lawsuit against Google.
BT, Britain's dominant fixed-line telecoms
group, sued Google in 2011 over six patents related to mobile
technology. But in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in a California federal
court, Google asserted four patents of its own.
Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick said the company also filed a separate lawsuit against BT in a U.K. court.
"We
have always seen litigation as a last resort, and we work hard to avoid
lawsuits," Fenwick said in an email. "But BT has brought several
meritless patent claims against Google and our customers - and they've
also been arming patent trolls."
A BT representative said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
BT
has accused Google of infringing BT's mobile patents through numerous
products, including the Android mobile platform, Gmail email service and
Google Maps. That lawsuit is still pending in a Delaware federal court.
In
addition, Google was sued in a Virginia federal court by Suffolk
Technologies LLC and one of the patents being asserted by Suffolk was
previously owned by BT, according to court filings. A Suffolk attorney
declined to comment.
In Google's U.S. lawsuit, the company said BT
violates Google patents that cover technology such as networking and
making phone calls over the Internet. Google obtained at least one of
the patents in its lawsuit from International Business Machines Corp in 2010, according to a government database.
IBM representatives could not immediately be reached.
The
case in U.S. District Court, Central District of California is Google
Inc v. BT Americas Inc, BT Conferencing Inc, BT Ins Inc and Ipanema
Technologies Corporation.
© Thomson Reuters 2013