Apple chief patent counsel to leave

Apple Inc's chief patent counsel is to quit the company, at a time when the iPhone maker is fighting numerous legal battles around the world, a Reuters report said quoting an unnamed source familiar with the situation.

The iPhone maker is presently fighting a number of litigations concerning smartphone patents, mostly with phonemakers using Google's rival Android software.

The report says it was not clear why Richard "Chip" Lutton Junior, who manages the iPhone maker's patent portfolio, was leaving the company at this critical point.

However, BJ Watrous, who served formerly with Hewlett Packard as deputy general counsel is now listed as Apple's chief IP counsel on his LinkedIn web page.

Many ongoing legal fights concern software patents, and may be seen as indirect attacks against Google's Android. However,  Apple is attacking Samsung Electronics also for copying its design.

Last month, Apple teamed up with Microsoft Corp, Blackberry maker Research In Motion Ltd and three other tech companies to outbid Google in a $4.5-billion deal for acquisition of a huge portfolio of some 6,000 technology patents from failed telecoms group Nortel Networks (See: Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM bag Nortel patents for $4.5 bn)