Motorola must have been feeling neglected lately, because the company has decided to turn the Apple-HTC patent scuffle into a three-way. Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Motorola proper, has already filed lawsuits against Apple in Illinois and Florida over a number of mobile technology patents. But it is also attempting to protect itself from a possible Apple countersuit by requesting that a federal judge in Delaware invalidate the patents Apple is leveraging against HTC—patents that Apple claims are violated by the Android operating system.

In recent months, according to the lawsuit, Motorola had been engaged in negotiations with Apple in an attempt by the companies to license each other's patents and avoid legal action. The negotiations appear to have gone sour, and now Motorola is stepping to Apple with three lawsuits and an International Trade Commission complaint for violating 18 of its patents.

Apple sued HTC earlier this year, claiming its Android smartphones violated as many as 24 of its own patents related to operating systems, GUIs, and other technologies. Since Apple claims that Android violates many of these patents, Motorola is moving to have the patents declared invalid, hoping to head off an Apple defense.

The declaratory judgment Motorola is seeking is a typical action for a party that is potentially threatened with a lawsuit not yet filed. Whether it will succeed on that count, especially before Apple is able to retaliate, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Motorola has more than just Apple to worry about—it's also facing a patent lawsuit from Microsoft, which claims that Android violates nine of its technology patents. In an effort to shore up its defenses, HTC licensed those patents from Microsoft earlier this year. Android has also recently been under attack from Oracle over its use of the Java programming language. That lawsuit targets Google, but could potentially affect any Android licensee if the suit goes in Oracle's favor.