Apple backed tech consortium sues Google and Samsung over patent infringement

Washington: A consortium that owns thousands of patents from the Nortel bankruptcy auction has sued Google and other manufacturers for patent infringement. Rockstar, which is owned jointly by Apple, Blackberry, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony, filed suit in US District Court in Texas. According to the Verge, the consortium has also alleged infringement by Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung and ZTE. Rockstar is suing Google over patents that lie at the heart of its search advertising business, and it`s suing Google`s hardware manufacturing partners over the devices that run Android, the report said. The move comes almost two years after the US Department of Justice approved the sale of the patents to Rockstar. The consortium spent 4.5 billion dollars to buy more than 6,000 patents from Nortel in an auction in which Google was also a bidder. Google is accused of infringing seven of the Nortel patents, covering technology that helps match internet search queries with relevant advertising, the report said. The lawsuit tried to use the fact that Google attempted to buy the patents against it. The lawsuit said that despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe. Samsung is accused of infringing seven patents related to graphical user interfaces, messaging, and notifications, among other issues. HTC and LG are accused of violating the same patents, the report added.