Apple and Google Using Patent Litigation as Business Strategy, Judge Says

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola says Apple and Google’s Motorola Mobility unit aren’t interested in resolving patent litigation, but use it as business strategy, Bloomberg reports.

“The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end,” U.S. District Judge Robert Scola in Miami said in an order dated yesterday. “That is not a proper use of this court.”

The patent infringement lawsuit first filed in 2010 has grown to more than 180 claims related to 12 patents over the past years, as part of a global battle for market share. Both companies accuse each other of intellectual property violation.

The judge called the tech companies’ actions “obstreperous and cantankerous conduct,” and refused to “mop up a mess they made by holding a hearing to reduce the size and complexity of the case”, giving the companies four months to narrow the case’s scope. If they can’t, the judge will put the case on hold until he resolves all of the disputes over the definition of patent terms.