Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against the US Customs and Border Protection, claiming that the department refused to follow the US International Trade Commission’s (ITC) order to block imports of phones made by Google’s Motorola Mobility unit.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Washington, District of Columbia.
In May last year, the ITC ruled that Motorola Mobility infringed a Microsoft patent to generate and synchronise calendar items and banned any infringing Motorola’s device from being imported into the country.
In its latest lawsuit, Microsoft has claimed that the customs department did not follow the order, which should have been enforced within 60 days after it was issued.
Microsoft deputy general counsel David Howard was quoted by Bloomberg as saying, "Customs has a clear responsibility to carry out ITC decisions, which are reached after a full trial and rigorous legal review."
"Here Customs repeatedly ignored its obligation and did so based on secret discussions," Howard said.
Google spokesman Matt Kallman told Bloomberg, "U.S. Customs appropriately rejected Microsoft’s effort to broaden its patent claims to block Americans from using a wide range of legitimate calendar functions, like scheduling meetings, on their mobile phones. We’re confident that the court will agree."
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Earlier this year, Google asked the ITC to drop pending charges against Microsoft, ending the patent battle between the two firms, which started in November 2010.
In April this year, a US judge rejected Motorola’s claim that Microsoft owes it billions in patent payments, in the first of two patent trials regarding the usage of Wi-Fi and other technology in its devices.
