Fujifilm awarded $10m in damages in patent dispute with Motorola
A US court has awarded digital camera manufacturer Fujifilm $10 million in damages, but also ruled that three of its patents are invalid in its dispute with Lenovo-owned Motorola.
Fujifilm sued Motorola in 2012 claiming it infringed four of its patents in cameras used in mobile phones. It sought $40 million in damages.
The US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on Monday (May 4) that Motorola infringed just one of the patents, US patent 6,144,763, which covers the conversion of colour images to monochrome.
It found the other three Fujifilm patents to be invalid on the grounds that they were obvious. According to Reuters, the patents found invalid covered face detection processes used in digital cameras, and Bluetooth wireless connections.
The products at the centre of the row were Motorola’s mobile phones Droid X, Xyboard 10.1 and the Razr. Fujifilm cited the cameras used in the mobile phones as the source of infringement.
The infringement finding meant that the court could award Fujifilm just a quarter of the $40 million in damages sought.
The court heard the case on April 20.
Fujifilm filed the lawsuit in 2012. Last year, Motorola filed a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement, but this was rejected by the court.
Motorola has vowed it will again challenge patent ‘763’s validity.
A spokesperson for Motorola told WIPR: “We are pleased with the verdict related to three out of the four patents and are evaluating our options on the one patent on which we did not prevail.”
Fujifilm did not respond to a request for comment.
