US vendor Motorola has stepped up its legal action against BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM), calling for US regulators to ban imports of the Canadian firm’s products that allegedly infringe on patents. Motorola filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) late last week requesting that the regulator investigate “RIM’s use of Motorola’s patents and, among other things, issue an Exclusion Order barring RIM’s importation of infringing products.” The complaint names five patents related to “certain early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas,” such as Wi-Fi access, application management, user interface and power management, that are now allegedly being violated by RIM. “In light of RIM’s continued unlicensed use of Motorola’s patents, RIM’s use of delay tactics in our current patent litigation, and RIM’s refusal to design out Motorola’s proprietary technology, Motorola had no choice but to file a complaint with the ITC to halt RIM’s continued infringement,” said Jonathan Meyer, senior vice president of intellectual property law at Motorola. RIM has not yet commented and shares in both firms closed down on Friday in response to the news.

According to a Reuters report, Motorola’s complaint stems from the two rivals’ failure to reach an agreement to renew a technology cross-licensing pact that allowed them to use each others’ technology. The previous pact expired in December 2007 and the companies have been in litigation in a Texas court since February 2008 due to their failure to reach a deal; Meyer said that Motorola has been considering its latest move for some time. The ITC typically considers complaints for a month before deciding whether to launch an investigation, which could take 12 to 14 months to complete. The ITC is also currently investigating a similar dispute between Nokia and Apple, as well as action from Kodak against both RIM and Apple.