The days of Apple and Google sitting down for a nice cup of tea are long gone. Now they're staring across the battlements, just waiting to lawyer bomb each other into the Stone Age. Motorola's new lawsuit against Apple—which Google had to approve—is the latest stop on the road to the inevitable clash of titans.
Motorola's suit had to be approved by Google because it came after the latter ponied up $12.5 billion for Moto and its cache of patents. The agreement says that Motorola can't file such a claim without Google's permission.
Six infringements are being brought against the iPhone 4S, and four of those carry over to iCloud. The list includes things like "receiver having concealed external antenna" and "method and apparatus for communicating summarized data." The patents seem to cover the iPhone and iCloud in a logical sense, but the people who know lawyer laws will decide that over the next few months.
Motorola wanted to piggyback these claims on top of a 2010 claim, but the courts ruled it's too late. It'll still be able to use the legal legwork from that first claim, and really, it's more an extension of an outstanding fight than a new beef. Still, Google giving it the OK adds the feeling that it and Apple are a bit closer to beating each other into submission with mangled lawyer cadavers. [FossPatents]