NTP – a US firm that holds a number of key email patents – has filed lawsuits against several of the world’s largest smartphone vendors over alleged patent infringements, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Last week, the firm filed a lawsuit in the US District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia against Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola over eight patents related to the delivery of email to mobile devices. “Use of NTP’s intellectual property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its licensees,” company co-founder Donald E. Stout said in a statement. “We took the necessary action to protect our intellectual property.” NTP is a privately held company co-founded by inventor Thomas Campana to hold the patents on technology he developed throughout his career. NTP calls him “the inventor of wireless email.” Campana, who died in 2004, held 50 patents. NTP has previously received a US$612.5 million settlement from Research In Motion that prevented a potential injunction of BlackBerry devices.

NTP’s propensity to launch legal action has been criticised by many within the industry. “They’ve got an asset, and they’re trying to get every dollar out of it that they can,” Mark Kesslen, a patent attorney for Lowenstein Sandler, told the WSJ. Kesslen added that the amount of the settlement will likely be less than earlier cases since the companies were well aware of the RIM suit and likely have some sort of technology “workaround” handy. Meanwhile, NTP’s Epstein said the company is still open to further negotiations with the vendors. “NTP is always open to talks to reasonable licensing terms,” he said. One notable absentee from the current suit is Nokia, which has already signed a licensing deal with NTP. In a separate development, Reuters reports that a US trade panel has agreed to investigate a complaint that Nokia, RIM, HTC and LG have infringed patented technology held by FlashPoint Technology, an electronic imaging company.