Apples gets top lawyers for Moto, HTC fight
Steve Jobs made Apple Inc.'s iPhone one of the best-selling smartphones on the market with its touch screen, fast Web connection and access to more than 300,000 downloadable applications. Now he's adding lawyers to the mix.
Cupertino, California-based Apple has hired some of the nation's top patent lawyers as outside counsel. They include Robert Krupka of Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis LLP, who negotiated a 2005 settlement in which Apple agreed to pay $100 million to Creative Technology Ltd., maker of the Zen music player; William Lee of WilmerHale in Boston, who successfully represented Broadcom Corp. in its fight against Qualcomm; and Matt Powers of New York's Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, who successfully defended the patent on Merck & Co.'s biggest product, the $4.7 billion-a- year asthma drug Singulair.
Apple added an in-house attorney, Noreen Krall, this year, to focus on intellectual property litigation. Krall had been chief IP counsel for Sun Microsystems Inc. and a staff attorney at International Business Machines Corp., according to the Intellectual Property Owners Association.
This week, Apple is squaring off against Nokia Oyj, the world's largest mobile-phone maker, before the International Trade Commission. The dispute, in which each side alleges intellectual property violations, is also a precursor to Apple patent battles with Motorola Inc. and HTC Corp.
Apple has been the most-sued technology company since 2008, the year after the iPhone was introduced, topping Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., according to LegalMetric Inc., a compiler of litigation data based in St. Louis.
At stake is leadership in the U.S. smartphone market. Cupertino, California-based Apple is trying to protect its right to import the iPhone while keeping its rivals -- particularly those whose phones are powered by Google Inc.'s Android operating system, the world's most popular smartphone software - - from doing the same, claiming they infringe its patents.
“These are very well-known, deep-pocketed, high-end manufacturers,” said Lyle Vander Schaaf, an attorney at Chicago's Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione who handles cases before the commission. “Usually you have one 800-pound gorilla going after a new entrant. Here you've got 800-pound gorillas fighting each other.”
Bruce Sewell, who joined Apple last year as general counsel after almost 15 years at Intel Corp., is leading Apple's legal efforts. During his time at Intel, including as general counsel, the company was known to use lawsuits to bottle up rivals in costly legal disputes, said Rob Enderle, president of Enderle Group, a technology consulting firm in San Jose, California.
Before working at Intel, Sewell was a partner at Phoenix- based law firm Brown & Bain, which represented Apple in its unsuccessful copyright case against Microsoft in the 1990s.
The International Trade Commission, a quasi-judicial agency, was set up to protect domestic markets from unfair trade practices. It has the power to ban imports of products found to infringe U.S. patents.
“The effort here is to stop Android” through the trade commission, Enderle said.
In March, Apple filed an ITC complaint against Taiwan-based HTC, the world's biggest maker of handsets using Google and Microsoft operating systems. Apple alleged HTC infringed several patents, including ones related to mobile phones. A trial is scheduled to begin in February.
Linda Mills, a spokeswoman for HTC, which has filed counter-complaints against Apple, declined to comment, as did Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson.
The most likely outcome is that the companies agree to end the litigation by licensing each other's patents, said Enderle.
Until then, “it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” he said.