Apple's latest legal victory over Motorola in Germany declared 'huge'

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014


Apple's latest courtroom win over Motorola Mobility in a German patent infringement suit is so significant, it has led one expert to now question whether Google's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola was worth it.



The Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court ruled on Monday that Motorola Mobility cannot further enforce its standard-essential patent injunction against Apple in Germany during its appeal. That indicates that Apple is "highly likely" to succeed, which was declared a "huge" win for the iPhone maker by intellectual property expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents.



"The appeals court summarily held that Apple has made an amended proposal for taking a license to MMI's patents on FRAND terms that should be acceptable to MMI, turning any further attempts to ban Apple's iPhone and iPad products into a violation of applicable antitrust law," Mueller wrote.



In fact, Apple's win on Monday was considered so significant by Mueller that he said it raises the question of whether Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion last August has "failed before the deal is even formally closed." Experts have largely viewed Google's acquisition of Motorola as a deal driven by patent acquisitions to bolster its strength in a lawsuit-laden smartphone industry.



The decision comes less than a week after Microsoft joined the fray and filed an antitrust suit against Motorola Mobility in the European Union, accusing it of abusing its standard-essential patents. Both Microsoft and Apple believe Motorola has been illegally attempting to block sales of their products by leveraging patents that are obligated to be offered with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing.



Motorola has sought in court to obtain 2.25 percent of Apple's sales of wireless devices, including the iPhone, in exchange for a patent license. Apple has argued that Motorola's royalty sought for a standard-essential patent is unfair, unreasonable and discriminatory.



While Monday's decision is a major win for Apple on the FRAND patent front, it is in no way related to the injunction Motorola obtained against Apple in Germany earlier this month related to push services. That has forced Apple to disable some of the functionality of its iCloud service in Germany.



[ View article on AppleInsider ]

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 68
    Will be interesting to see their next move.
  • Reply 2 of 68
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    I'd be really pissed to not have iCloud. I find it indispensable.
  • Reply 3 of 68
    This is significant! -- And it seems only fair.



    I'm definitely intrigued by what may come of the push services contention.
  • Reply 4 of 68
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    I'd be really pissed to not have iCloud. I find it indispensable.



    Couldn't agree more!
  • Reply 5 of 68
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jimbo1234 View Post


    Will be interesting to see their next move.



    You know their next move - same as all the past moves. Lots of FUD, more lawsuits all over the world, and continued portrayal of the "We're open, so we must be better" meme. Maybe even start a petition......
  • Reply 6 of 68
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    I'd be really pissed to not have iCloud. I find it indispensable.



    You do know that iCloud isn't completely shut down in Germany right? As far as I've read it's just the push email. Your iStream photos and app purchases will still sync across devices. I might be wrong but I think calendar and contacts will also still sync.
  • Reply 7 of 68
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jimbo1234 View Post


    Will be interesting to see their next move.



    they should just take the license payments and be happy. concentrate on making motorola phones the 'standard' android phone and get rid of that added motowiz or pisswiz or whatever crap is in addition to Android.
  • Reply 8 of 68
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GregInPrague View Post


    You do know that iCloud isn't completely shut down in Germany right? As far as I've read it's just the push email. Your iStream photos and app purchases will still sync across devices. I might be wrong but I think calendar and contacts will also still sync.



    So would that only be relevant if you use iCloud/MobileMe email? Not a web mail or exchange service? As in not many people
  • Reply 9 of 68
    wovelwovel Posts: 956member
    Maybe the standards bodies should require the IP holders to specify the terms they will offer to everyone if their technology is included in the standard. Seems like a lot of companies are trying to take advantage of the current system.
  • Reply 10 of 68
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland View Post


    I'd be really pissed to not have iCloud. I find it indispensable.



    Uh....

    They still have iCloud, they just have to change the settings on mail to fetch instead of push, and this only effects mail and only on mobile devices.
  • Reply 11 of 68
    Let me clarify the confusion on Push Email.



    iCloud email is still on. The only thing that was shut down was push notification. That means your iPhones are not "always" connected to the mail servers and notify you instantly. But you can have the same functionality by using Fetch method. Rather than the mail server pushing the email notification to you, your handset will periodically check the email server to see if there is any new email. You can set the interval when the handset will retrieve emails - it can be 5 mins, 15 mins, 30 mins etc.



    To me checking emails in every 15 mins is a much better option as it will not drain your handset battery.
  • Reply 12 of 68
    Just as Google was celebrating a significant watering down of the Oracle lawsuit, they are faced with this monster whammy in Germany! From here on, the whole point of the Motorola's acquisition will be gone.



    I still hope Oracle can recoup and hit back with further patents, and really stick it into Google. What Google has done with Java is so blatant, it will be extremely unfair if they can walk away from this scot-free.



    It will be interesting to see what Apple agreed to, to reach this stage with Motorola. I sure hope that they did not agree to the 2.25% asked for. But seriously brings to question what Google would do now.
  • Reply 13 of 68
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GregInPrague View Post


    You do know that iCloud isn't completely shut down in Germany right? As far as I've read it's just the push email. Your iStream photos and app purchases will still sync across devices. I might be wrong but I think calendar and contacts will also still sync.



    Ah that's great.
  • Reply 14 of 68
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by diplication View Post


    Uh....

    They still have iCloud, they just have to change the settings on mail to fetch instead of push, and this only effects mail and only on mobile devices.



    Stupid court case. Feck Moto.
  • Reply 15 of 68
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    I love how the Android copyists can't even come up with an original name:

    http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/2...id_collection/
  • Reply 16 of 68
    pokepoke Posts: 506member
    I don't think this acquisition was ever about patents (although the high price might have been due to Motorola threatening a patent war). Google wants to be in the hardware business. I'd imagine they're also worried about Samsung's dominance of Android. The idea that they could run Motorola as a separate company with no conflict of interest was always absurd. It's astonishing how credulous the tech media is when in comes to Google (and only Google). If Microsoft had acquired HP or Dell in the 90s and announced that they were going to continue to run the company separately but it (somehow) wasn't anything their partners should worry about, would anyone have believed it?
  • Reply 17 of 68
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    I love how the Android copyists can't even come up with an original name:

    http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/2...id_collection/



    They're dead. ViewSonic is dead. That's all there is to this.



    It's the same as if someone tried to sell Corka-Corla.
  • Reply 18 of 68
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    Viewsonic Viewphone 4s.



    How pathetic is that?



    These Android losers have no shame at all, not to mention zero originality and zero talent.



    I threw a perfectly good, working Viewsonic CRT monitor in the trash about a month ago.



    Screw Viewsonic. These Android losers don't even try to make an effort.



    As for Motorola and Google, well fuck them too!
  • Reply 19 of 68
    elrothelroth Posts: 1,201member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wovel View Post


    Maybe the standards bodies should require the IP holders to specify the terms they will offer to everyone if their technology is included in the standard. Seems like a lot of companies are trying to take advantage of the current system.



    Not necessarily a lot of companies - apparently just Motorola and Samsung. That's a good idea, though, for the standards bodies to spell out general terms for the licenses. I also hope the standards people would reject technology from Samsung and Motorola in the future, after seeing the abusive behaviour of those companies.
  • Reply 20 of 68
    [insult removed]
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