Motorola patent being enforced against Apple's iCloud invalidated by UK judge

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Google's Motorola on Friday lost its UK patent infringement case against Microsoft after a High Court judge invalidated a property currently being used as the basis of an injunction against Apple's iCloud in Germany.

The ruling from UK High Court Judge Richard Arnold found Motorola's patent for synchronizing messages across multiple mobile devices is invalid, reports Bloomberg (via FOSS Patents, allowing Apple a chance to possibly overturn an existing German injunction against iCloud push notifications the Google subsidiary won using the same intellectual property.

?The patent is invalid and should be revoked,? Judge Arnold said.

At issue was Motorola's European Patent No. EP0847654 for a "Multiple pager synchronization system and method," which calls for the automatic updating of message read status across a number of pagers associated with the same pager number. The property is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 5,754,119 which carries the same name.

Motorola Pager Sync Patent
Source: Espacenet


In February, the IP was successfully leveraged against Apple's iCloud push notification system in Germany, resulting in a service shutdown that remains active today. Apple's motion to stay the ban was rebuffed in March by the Karlsruhe Court of Appeals. While both methods synchronize digital content on a pluarlity of mobile devices, Motorola's patent targets pager technology from the 1990s while Apple's service includes email, texts, and other communications protocols that have gained popularity in the intervening years.

According to the judgment, if Motorola's patent had been upheld, Microsoft's Live Messenger instant messaging and Exchange email services would be in violation of the IP, suggesting those assets could have seen a shutdown similar to the one imposed on Apple.

Friday's decision comes ahead of another Motorola v. Microsoft trial scheduled to take place in Germany's Mannheim Regional Court in February. Apple also has two upcoming court dates with Motorola at which the invalidation will likely be leveraged to lift the current iCloud injunction.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15


    Motorola won't have to apologize to Apple, though.

  • Reply 2 of 15
    @tallest skil

    Yea, sad.. double standards abound.... That last judge that made Apple 'apologize' seemed heavily biased.. The whole 'not as cool' comment struck me as dripping with sarcasm.
  • Reply 3 of 15


    Originally Posted by Adrayven View Post

    Yea, sad.. double standards abound.... That last judge that made Apple 'apologize' seemed heavily biased.. The whole 'not as cool' comment struck me as dripping with sarcasm.




    Oh, yeah. I'm glad the Apple community jumped on it and read it as written, but I don't think that's how he intended it.

  • Reply 4 of 15
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Make Motorola display an Apple apology on the UK website, otherwise it never happened.
  • Reply 5 of 15
    Funny how when Apple had to apologize the British judges were "smart".

    Now that the British declared a patent invalid that Motorola had used to force Apple to modify iCloud (good news in the haters minds ), I wonder what they think now?

    I imagine this thread will have the usual idiots hiding away until the next story they can spew their garbage ones along.
  • Reply 6 of 15
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post



    Make Motorola display an Apple apology on the UK website, otherwise it never happened.


    Why not on the Google home page where it belongs?

  • Reply 7 of 15
    patsupatsu Posts: 430member
    steven n. wrote: »
    Why not on the Google home page where it belongs?

    Good idea !
  • Reply 8 of 15
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Going on Apple v Samsung the UK judge probably ruled software=invalid.

    Was it a community court?
  • Reply 9 of 15
    froodfrood Posts: 771member


    Nice.  If you look at the patent there really is no invention there and it almost doesn't even qualify as innovative.  Just another patent designed to obstruct competitors instead of fostering innovation.


     


    Nice one judges! 

  • Reply 10 of 15


    Hopefully the Germans that this into account and allow their citizens to fully use their iPhones with iClouds.

  • Reply 11 of 15
    kdarlingkdarling Posts: 1,640member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Motorola won't have to apologize to Apple, though.



     


    Not unless they play games like Apple did.


     


    Apple didn't have to apologize at first either.  


     


    That wasn't ordered until they first dissed the UK High Court, and then posted false comments mixed in with the trial result.


     


    Following all that up with hiding the link off-screen was the icing on the cake, although I thought the part about it taking "two weeks" to change was a clever play on that typical programmer's response phrase.


     


    The UK Court showed a lot of restraint.   I think a US judge would've had someone from Apple up for contempt by then.

  • Reply 12 of 15
    rayzrayz Posts: 814member
    kdarling wrote: »
    Not unless they play games like Apple did.

    Apple didn't have to apologize at first either.  

    That wasn't ordered until they first dissed the UK High Court, and then posted false comments mixed in with the trial result.

    Following all that up with hiding the link off-screen was the icing on the cake, although I thought the part about it taking "two weeks" to change was a clever play on that typical programmer's response phrase.

    The UK Court showed a lot of restraint.   I think a US judge would've had someone from Apple up for contempt by then.

    When the judge told Samsung that evidence was in admissible, their response was to show it to the press in an attempt to circumvent the order and influence the jury. If Samsung wasn't brought up on contempt for that then I don't think Apple would have been found in contempt for the stuff they did in the UK.
  • Reply 13 of 15
    rayzrayz Posts: 814member

    Oh, yeah. I'm glad the Apple community jumped on it and read it as written, but I don't think that's how he intended it.

    Mmm. Interesting. I never read it that way. Looking at the comments surrounding the 'cool' part, I don't think he was trying to be sarcastic; he was trying to be trendy.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    Hopefully the Germans that this into account and allow their citizens to fully use their iPhones with iClouds.

    I'm hoping that for them as well. They are already left out of Street View, save a few cities. Much on their own request, though.

    1000
  • Reply 15 of 15
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Motorola won't have to apologize to Apple, though.





    In that case the suit had nothing to do with the ipad. It used a registered design that did not represent any product that made it to market. This case also has nothing to do with copying. You can infringe upon something without even being aware of it. I like seeing things invalidated. If any company takes it as far as litigation, their patents should be closely examined. This ensures they can't assert trash patents indefinitely.

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