Motorola has asked a federal judge in Delaware to invalidate eleven patents held by Apple. Motorola recently sued Apple over patent infringement. Either they are going for the jugular by also seeking to kill some of Apple's existing patents, or these are patents that Motorola's lawyers feel Apple could file a counter suit on and is heading that maneuver off at the pass.Patently Apple has a list of the patents in question as well as some background on the case. These are the same patents that Apple is suing HTC for violating. Remember, HTC got cover from Microsoft through a licensing agreement earlier this year.

If Apple, HTC and Microsoft all appear to think these patents are valid, Motorola may be thinking it is vulnerable to a similar suit and is trying to remove Apple's grounds for filing. Of course, it could run to Microsoft and attempt to strike similar deals with Microsoft, but Microsoft isn't as cozy with Motorola as it is with HTC. Business is business of course, so for the right price, anything is possible.

Keep in mind these revolve primarily around the Android operating system. Google, which gives Android away for free under open source agreements is under no obligation to fight these battles on behalf of those that use its operating system. That makes patent infringement lawsuit costs a big question mark in the true cost of using Android.

A full list of the patents are at the Patently Apple site. They cover everything from object oriented graphic systems to distributing events in an operating system, the latter of which sounds like multitasking to me. If you have a large cup of coffee and a pot on the burner making more, you might be able to read through some of these patents to form your own opinion on their validity. As for me, I'll just follow it in the news and leave it up to the patent lawyers to interpret these documents.

Do you think Motorola has a chance here or are they making a futile attempt to cut Apple's potential suit off at the knees?