German court dismisses Motorola's 3G-related suit against Apple

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014


A German court has ruled that Apple's wireless products do not infringe on inventions related to 3G/UMTS owned by rival Motorola Mobility.



Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court ruled on Friday that Motorola would not be awarded an injunction against Apple's products for the patent in question. As detailed by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, Motorola had declared its own patent "essential," not any standard setting organization, but the court disagreed with Motorola.



Specifically, Judge Voss determined that Apple did not infringe on claim 9 of , entitled "Code and System for Generating a Complex Pseudonoise Sequence for Processing a Code Division Multiple Access [CDMA] Signal." The court found that Motorola failed to present conclusive evidence for infringement.



The victory by Apple in Mannheim was noteworthy because Motorola has already won two earlier patent infringement cases against Apple in that German court. In December, Motorola won a decision related to a GPRS patent, and last week Motorola was awarded an injunction against Apple related to its push services.



It's expected that Motorola will seek to enforce the injunction on the latter patent ruling as soon as possible. That means German iCloud users could soon need to reconfigure their e-mail clients or move to another service.











Motorola is in the process of a planned buyout from Google, owner of the Android mobile operating system that is already found on many of Motorola's products. The two companies are seeking regulatory approval for the $12.5 billion purchase to be finalized.



[ View article on AppleInsider ]

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member
    Hmmm. .



    So it's as I mentioned yesterday. Moto's patent assertion wasn't truly FRAND, even tho Moto said it was "essential" and couldn't be worked around. No standards body had accepted it as essential tho, and in the judge's view it was not with no evidence that Apple used the patented tech in any device.



    Had the court deemed it was truly essential then Apple would not have been allowed to claim they didn't make use of it.



    All in all very confusing.
  • Reply 2 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    Hmmm. .



    So it's as I mentioned yesterday. Moto's patent assertion wasn't truly FRAND, even tho Moto said it was "essential" and couldn't be worked around. No standards body had accepted it as essential tho, and in the judge's view it was not with no evidence that Apple used the patented tech in any device.



    Had the court deemed it was truly essential then Apple would not have been allowed to claim they didn't make use of it.



    All in all very confusing.



    is this a different case or the same one from the previous discussion?
  • Reply 3 of 19
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Does that mean that get the phones back on the store?
  • Reply 4 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    Does that mean that get the phones back on the store?



    The phones never left the stores...and the online merchants only had to remove the products for what? a few hours?
  • Reply 5 of 19
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AbsoluteDesignz View Post


    is this a different case or the same one from the previous discussion?



    The discussion has been mixed between the German suits and the similar US actions. Some posters have been confusing the two, but the basic assertions are the same. Moto claims some of the asserted patents are "essential", standards bodies haven't accepted some of them as part of any FRAND-encumbered standard, Apple claims not to use them and thus not infringing, while at the same time saying Moto is unfairly using essential patents against them. Clear as mud, right?



    FWIW there are (at least) three different German actions initiated by Moto against Apple. So far Moto has come out on top in two of those.



    I can't emphasize enough how confusing these cases have become.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    The discussion has been mixed between the German suits and the similar US actions. Some posters have been confusing the two, but the basic assertions are the same. Moto claims some of the asserted patents are "essential", standards bodies haven't accepted some of them as part of any FRAND-encumbered standard, Apple claims not to use them and thus not infringing, while at the same time saying Moto is unfairly using essential patents against them. Clear as mud, right?



    FWIW there are (at least) three different German actions initiated by Moto against Apple. So far Moto has come out on top in two of those.



    I can't emphasize enough how confusing these cases have become.



    Okay so this is a third case and not the one that resulted in the suspension of the injunction and obviously not the iCloud one?



    The article should do more to specify that as most posters tend to skim. And few read the first few comments it seems.
  • Reply 7 of 19
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,014member
    Sad, moto, sad. You continue to embarrass yourselves.
  • Reply 8 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SDW2001 View Post


    Sad, moto, sad. You continue to embarrass yourselves.



    "2 out of 3 ain't bad"
  • Reply 9 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SDW2001 View Post


    Sad, moto, sad. You continue to embarrass yourselves.



    When will they realize that you cannot win against Apple?



    When you play Global Thermonuclear War, there is always just one winner.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AbsoluteDesignz View Post


    "2 out of 3 ain't bad"



    Yeah, and what did moto get out of those 2? A w hours of barring online distribution of Apple products? No monetary gain, no banning of Apple products... Just lots of lost cash. And since they were in the red this past quarter, it's gotta be making their stockholders wonder.
  • Reply 11 of 19
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member
    And of course since this is another new day, Apple has filed another set of patent infringements claims in Australia, throwing another 20 at Samsung. So as not to insult the US courts by ignoring them, they got a batch of new US suits being filed here too.



    I'd suggest both Apple and Samsung counsels purchase property to house the dozens of lawyers rather than use hotel rooms. It will be much cheaper for them in the long run.

    /s
  • Reply 12 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac.World View Post


    Yeah, and what did moto get out of those 2? A w hours of barring online distribution of Apple products? No monetary gain, no banning of Apple products... Just lots of lost cash. And since they were in the red this past quarter, it's gotta be making their stockholders wonder.



    I don't care about that...at all actually...my point was the poster I quoted was acting as if this one case was it...but this is one loss out of 3 cases...the other two ending in a victory, and a victory with...who the hell knows as it's back to the drawing board.
  • Reply 13 of 19
    Cue the predictable "and a German judge drives off in a neue Audi R8" in 5, 4, 3...
  • Reply 14 of 19
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AbsoluteDesignz View Post


    is this a different case or the same one from the previous discussion?



    This is a different case. As stated not a FRAND related issue, but is considered by Motorola to be essential to the standard. But Apple claims they aren't using it anyway, so the case was dropped.



    The previous case Motorola won, is, asserted by Apple, FRAND encumbered IP. There was no way Apple could "win". They are legally liable to pay a licensing fee to Motorola, however they thought the fee was ridiculous, so rather than attempt to negotiate with Motorola directly it's better for them to have it dragged into court. The same happened with Nokia. Everyone assumes Nokia "won", but I'd be willing to bet they didn't get all they originally wanted from Apple. Same thing will happen with Motorola. And furthermore, Motorola runs the risk of being investigated, along side Samsung, for anti-trust issues.
  • Reply 15 of 19
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AbsoluteDesignz View Post


    The phones never left the stores...and the online merchants only had to remove the products for what? a few hours?



    The only online merchant that had to remove them was Apple.
  • Reply 16 of 19
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mac.World View Post


    Yeah, and what did moto get out of those 2? A w hours of barring online distribution of Apple products? No monetary gain, no banning of Apple products... Just lots of lost cash. And since they were in the red this past quarter, it's gotta be making their stockholders wonder.



    Actually, Motorola still might win big. Apple only gained a temporary break.
  • Reply 17 of 19
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBell View Post


    Actually, Motorola still might win big. Apple only gained a temporary break.



    Motorola could win every case they want, but they will still lose.



    It will be a public relations disaster for them if millions of Apple users are either forced to lose features or pay more for products/services.



    I've never been brand-orientated before, but Samsung, Motorola, ang Google are truly on my shit-list now, and I, for one, will be actively avoiding their products in the future.



    In all likelihood, this blowback effect is something that isn't even being measured or taken into consideration, and could end up costing them dearly.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    The discussion has been mixed between the German suits and the similar US actions. Some posters have been confusing the two, but the basic assertions are the same. Moto claims some of the asserted patents are "essential", standards bodies haven't accepted some of them as part of any FRAND-encumbered standard, Apple claims not to use them and thus not infringing, while at the same time saying Moto is unfairly using essential patents against them. Clear as mud, right?



    FWIW there are (at least) three different German actions initiated by Moto against Apple. So far Moto has come out on top in two of those.



    I can't emphasize enough how confusing these cases have become.



    And this case is a great example of how Motorola is shooting itself in the foot when it claims that it's essential, but not essential enough to be FRAND:



    http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012...-mobility.html

    Quote:

    This is a textbook example of a patent that was declared essential (by MMI itself, not by any standard-setting organization) but isn't essential in the court's opinion: the judge doesn't rule out that Apple may be able to implement the standard without necessarily having products that contain the "means" claimed by MMI.



    When I reported it on the December 2, 2011 trial of this case, I already wrote that MMI's complaint "ha[d] the court puzzled". Color me not surprised in the slightest. The reasoning provided by the judge today is absolutely consistent with the doubts he expressed at trial.



    Essentially, the judge is saying that you can't do what Motorola is doing. They're claiming that it's not FRAND and therefore they have not officially declared it part of the essential standards, yet at the same time, they want the court to say that Apple's guilty by default because the patent is essential. That kind of talking out of both sides of your mouth apparently didn't sway this judge.
  • Reply 19 of 19
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mjtomlin View Post


    This is a different case. As stated not a FRAND related issue, but is considered by Motorola to be essential to the standard. But Apple claims they aren't using it anyway, so the case was dropped.



    The previous case Motorola won, is, asserted by Apple, FRAND encumbered IP. There was no way Apple could "win". They are legally liable to pay a licensing fee to Motorola, however they thought the fee was ridiculous, so rather than attempt to negotiate with Motorola directly it's better for them to have it dragged into court. The same happened with Nokia. Everyone assumes Nokia "won", but I'd be willing to bet they didn't get all they originally wanted from Apple. Same thing will happen with Motorola. And furthermore, Motorola runs the risk of being investigated, along side Samsung, for anti-trust issues.



    This is a very good summation of the situation. Motorola is free to asset patent rights for unencumbered IP, Apple is free to defend themselves in court, let the chips fall where they may.



    In the case of FRAND encumbered IP, however, Motorola is running a real risk of opening themselves to some pretty hefty sanctions (at least in the EU) if they are found to be exploiting their standards required FRAND IP in order to wrest favorable terms on licensing other, non-FRAND IP from the competitors. It's an abuse of the system and exactly what it was designed to prevent.
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