Lawyers say Apple likely to get suspension of German injunction from Motorola
Several German lawyers polled about a recent preliminary injunction against Apple won by rival Motorola Mobility are in agreement that Apple is likely to win a temporary suspension of the order, though they did note that failure to do so could have an impact on its business in the country.
Florian Mueller of FOSS Patent contacted a number of German lawyers about a default judgment that a German court handed down last Friday. The preliminary ruling came because Apple missed a deadline to answer Motorola's patent complaints against it.
News of the injunction made waves on Friday because it appeared to threaten Apple's business in Germany, the largest market in Europe. But, it was quickly revealed that the judgment was made in Motorola's suit against the parent company Apple Inc., while Apple had focused its efforts on vigorously fighting an identical complaint lodged against its local subsidiary Apple Germany.
"This is a procedural issue that has nothing to do with the merits of the case. This does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time," Apple said in a statement late Friday.
However, Mueller was quick to point out the vagueness of Apple's "at this time" qualification, noting that it leaves open the possibility that the injunction could affect the company's sales anytime in the future. In his view, an impact from the injunction could come "within weeks" if Apple is unable to persuade the court to hold off on enforcing the judgment.
The likelihood of that happening is low, though, according to the lawyers that Mueller interviewed. They all agreed on a conservative position that Apple is "more likely than not" to win a temporary suspension until the court can provide a substantive decision. That decision would also then be subject to appeal, though any subsequent appeals would have to evaluate whether to allow the injunction or suspend it until the next ruling.
German law firm Scherer & Körbes believes that the injunction, if it went through, could "probably" result in the prohibition of Apple's supply of devices to its German subsidiary.
Mueller went on to explain possible reasons for why Apple missed the deadline to respond to Motorola's arguments. Though highly unlikely, it's possible a careless mistake or external factors, such as traffic, could have caused Apple's counsel to miss the proceedings. Alternatively, the company may have chosen to let the deadline lapse in order to buy time to submit, or even discover, new pleadings. Under German law, new representations of fact must be submitted a week before a decisive hearing date. It remains unclear, however, what exactly Apple's strategy is in its defense against Motorola.
Following Google's announcement of a deal to purchase Motorola, Apple had filed to put two of the lawsuits between the two companies on hold while the merger was being completed. Both those motions, however, have been denied.
Motorola sued first last October, lodging a complaint with the U.S. international Trade Commission against Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and some of its Mac products. The company also made a preemptive strike against Apple in hopes of invalidating some of the patents that it was already bringing to bear against handset maker HTC. Apple quickly fired back with its own suit, alleging that Motorola had violated patents related to multitouch gestures on the iPhone.
Apple has since complained that Motorola is using Fair Reasonable and NonDiscriminatory encumbered patents as weapons against it. The company argues that Motorola is being anti-competitive by unfairly mixing standards patents with implementation patents in its complaints against Apple.
"By making false commitments that led to the establishment of worldwide standards incorporating its own patents and eliminating competing alternative technologies," Apple wrote in a federal lawsuit, "Motorola [Mobility] has become a gatekeeper, accruing the power to harm or eliminate competition in the relevant markets if it so desires."
Florian Mueller of FOSS Patent contacted a number of German lawyers about a default judgment that a German court handed down last Friday. The preliminary ruling came because Apple missed a deadline to answer Motorola's patent complaints against it.
News of the injunction made waves on Friday because it appeared to threaten Apple's business in Germany, the largest market in Europe. But, it was quickly revealed that the judgment was made in Motorola's suit against the parent company Apple Inc., while Apple had focused its efforts on vigorously fighting an identical complaint lodged against its local subsidiary Apple Germany.
"This is a procedural issue that has nothing to do with the merits of the case. This does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time," Apple said in a statement late Friday.
However, Mueller was quick to point out the vagueness of Apple's "at this time" qualification, noting that it leaves open the possibility that the injunction could affect the company's sales anytime in the future. In his view, an impact from the injunction could come "within weeks" if Apple is unable to persuade the court to hold off on enforcing the judgment.
The likelihood of that happening is low, though, according to the lawyers that Mueller interviewed. They all agreed on a conservative position that Apple is "more likely than not" to win a temporary suspension until the court can provide a substantive decision. That decision would also then be subject to appeal, though any subsequent appeals would have to evaluate whether to allow the injunction or suspend it until the next ruling.
German law firm Scherer & Körbes believes that the injunction, if it went through, could "probably" result in the prohibition of Apple's supply of devices to its German subsidiary.
Mueller went on to explain possible reasons for why Apple missed the deadline to respond to Motorola's arguments. Though highly unlikely, it's possible a careless mistake or external factors, such as traffic, could have caused Apple's counsel to miss the proceedings. Alternatively, the company may have chosen to let the deadline lapse in order to buy time to submit, or even discover, new pleadings. Under German law, new representations of fact must be submitted a week before a decisive hearing date. It remains unclear, however, what exactly Apple's strategy is in its defense against Motorola.
Following Google's announcement of a deal to purchase Motorola, Apple had filed to put two of the lawsuits between the two companies on hold while the merger was being completed. Both those motions, however, have been denied.
Motorola sued first last October, lodging a complaint with the U.S. international Trade Commission against Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and some of its Mac products. The company also made a preemptive strike against Apple in hopes of invalidating some of the patents that it was already bringing to bear against handset maker HTC. Apple quickly fired back with its own suit, alleging that Motorola had violated patents related to multitouch gestures on the iPhone.
Apple has since complained that Motorola is using Fair Reasonable and NonDiscriminatory encumbered patents as weapons against it. The company argues that Motorola is being anti-competitive by unfairly mixing standards patents with implementation patents in its complaints against Apple.
"By making false commitments that led to the establishment of worldwide standards incorporating its own patents and eliminating competing alternative technologies," Apple wrote in a federal lawsuit, "Motorola [Mobility] has become a gatekeeper, accruing the power to harm or eliminate competition in the relevant markets if it so desires."
Comments
Yawn. Wake me up when it actually happens (or doesn't happen). Then it's news.
agreed...
and I like this article...reads very matter-of-factly with no sense of bias from the author.
So we've gone from non-issue to "Apple will likely get a suspension" in a matter of days.
I will say, the twitter row between Nilay Patel and Florian Mueller was funny. Lots of pro-apple people were taking Nilay's word over Florians (unsurprisingly).
I love fast moving stories like this where writers bias really shows.
But by then, perhaps Vulcans will have landed and show us how to use sub-space(quantum) communication. Vulcans do not seem like the suing type.
Wasn't the win a pointless one the other day according to DED? (I see the original article has been updated to remove that notion.)
So we've gone from non-issue to "Apple will likely get a suspension" in a matter of days.
I will say, the twitter row between Nilay Patel and Florian Mueller was funny. Lots of pro-apple people were taking Nilay's word over Florians (unsurprisingly).
I love fast moving stories like this where writers bias really shows.
Let's be consistent here. It seems when Florian takes Apple's position he gets flamed and when he doesn't take Apple's side he gets flamed.
What do people have against Florian?
So we've gone from non-issue to "Apple will likely get a suspension" in a matter of days.
I know you see the word suspension and automatically assume it's a bad thing but it's suspension of the order, not suspension of being able to sell in Germany.
I know you see the word suspension and automatically assume it's a bad thing but it's suspension of the order, not suspension of being able to sell in Germany.
Why did you assume this? I was talking about the suspension of the order.
We've gone from Motorla getting a symbolic win which Apple supposedly let happen (because they can never get things wrong amirite?) from Nilay to Apple likely getting a suspension of the order which makes the initial symbolic win talk a few days ago nonsense.
Apple centric sites immediately sided with Nilay's stance despite Florian's writing on the matter. Florian is normally hounded by the Android faithful for being anti Google but it was really telling how people were willing to dismiss him now that he has some writing that is less than pro Apple. The same could be said for Android centric sites cheering Florian on this time so it cuts both ways.
It's great to see all the spin and bias.
EDIT - To put it in layman's terms, why does Apple even need a suspension on something that was nothing two days ago?
Let's be consistent here. It seems when Florian takes Apple's position he gets flamed and when he doesn't take Apple's side he gets flamed.
What do people have against Florian?
They both want to use him to support their own arguments, and it infuriates them when they can't.
They both want to use him to support their own arguments, and it infuriates them when they can't.
Agreed!
I am a very big apple enthusiast, I love apple products I have used macs since 1987 and only macs. Having said that I really like Florian Mueller and his blog. He calls it like it is, if that makes people who are apple fan boys upset that is there problem, just like if he calls it against fandroids and they dont like it that is there problem too. I like someone like Mueller who gives readers the honest truth as he sees it and cuts out all the crap that other columnists like to put in. Mueller also sights the actual court documents and in a lot of cases attends the hearings in question when he can. Sometimes the truth hurts no matter what side your on, but that does not change the fact that it is the truth. Mueller makes no apologies for the fact that he uses android devices and apple devices too. And he makes no appologies for his opinions even though they sometimes go against the mainstream media and often do.
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This has spawned a funny twitter war between theverge.com and FOSSpatents: http://bit.ly/skqCIh
Epic just epic.