“Apple knows what it’s like to win injunctions against rivals. It won four of them against Samsung (two in Germany, one in the Netherlands and most recently one in Australia; all of them preliminary),” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “Now it seems that Apple has just come out on the losing end of a patent infringement lawsuit. I have received a copy of what purports to be a default judgment by the Mannheim Regional Court barring Apple from selling in Germany — the single largest market in Europe — any mobile devices infringing on two Motorola Mobility patents and determining that Apple owes Motorola Mobility damages for past infringement since April 19, 2003.”
These are the two apparently-enforced patents:
• EP (European Patent) 1010336 (B1) on a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system”; this is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898
• EP (European Patent) 0847654 (B1) on a “multiple pager status synchronization system and method”; this is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 5,754,119
Mueller reports, “According to the document, this decision can be executed ‘preliminarily,’ which means under German law that Motorola Mobility can enforce this injunction against Apple from now on even if Apple appeals the ruling (which I’m pretty sure it will). That means Apple may temporarily — until a second judgment is entered — be barred from selling any mobile devices in Germany… I don’t know whether Apple thinks that resellers will source its products from other EU markets anyway. A default judgment doesn’t mean that Motorola Mobility can easily shut down resellers since the merits of the case haven’t really been adjudicated.”
Read more in the full article here.
Matthew Panzarino reports for TNW, “According to Engadget, the report has been confirmed by Motorola, who issued this statement: As media and mobility continue to converge, Motorola Mobility’s patented technologies are increasingly important for innovation within the wireless and communications industries, for which Motorola Mobility has developed an industry leading intellectual property portfolio. We will continue to assert ourselves in the protection of these assets, while also ensuring that our technologies are widely available to end-users. We hope that we are able to resolve this matter, so we can focus on creating great innovations that benefit the industry.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tempest in a teapot.
UPDATE: 11:59pm EDT: Engadget reports, “We just got the following statement from Apple regarding the ruling: This is a procedural issue, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time.”
MacDailyNews Take: Like we said, much ado about nothing.
Not to worry. The German consumer will have the final say on this.
“Occupy Germany” with a little Oakland riots thrown in to boot is what I predict if Germans no longer have the ability to buy their iPad.
I’d hate to be a Samsung businessman in Germany if there were an iPad ban. Does the phrase “Opening, invalidates warranty” comes to mind!
wow this i did not expect
well hopefully appeal is successful
Are they FRAND patents? I’m not a radio engineer, but these sound radio function related.
Patents suck.
I guess this starts to answer the question on google kowing or noyt knowing whay they were doing when they bought moto.
Sadly the patent wars are not even close to over.
if Motorola Mobility bars Apple from selling devices based on a FRAND patent in Germany, wouldn’t that give the EU Antitrust authorities valuable material and evidence to start chasing Motorola Mobility as well? and what if Motorola Mobility would be investigated and proven antitrust behavior, what would that cost be?
I don’t know who’s playing more with fire… just a thought…
In an attempt to investigate the patents in contention, I found that there are no details about “EP (European Patent) 1010336 (B1)” at the source article’s reference. Thankfully, there is a text description of “U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898” at the reference, that being the US Patent Office.
However, I cannot find any way to access this patents images via a Mac web browser! They are in a special lossless compressed TIFF format that requires a compatible plugin. On Macs, that plug-in is supposed to be QuickTime, but it FAILs. It doesn’t help that the ‘Help’ for viewing the images is over 5 years old (2006), demonstrating an expected lack of modernity at the US Patent Office, fitting their general reputation for being OUT OF TOUCH, aka LUDDITE.
Digging into the page source code to get the TIFF image references and downloading them via wget, etc., is possible. But of course the US Patent Office names the files with a period at the beginning, forcing them to be INVISIBLE once actually on your Mac. Therefore, you have to fiddle with them to rename them and make them visible and actually give them a .tif extension. They are then viewable in Preview, etc.
Could the US Patent Office be MORE obtuse or Mac HOSTILE?
–> I don’t think so. 😯
No doubt it would give me nightmares to actually visit the place and discover ‘the rest of the story’. What a dump.
I agree with you about the USPTO not being very Mac-friendly (or just easy to access for non-patent attorney visitors). However, do a search on Google for: “Patent No 6,359,898” (without the quote) and the second link is to Google Patents, which translates those images into an easy-to-browse format.
Default judgement?!!! So, as Mueller indicates, Apple failed to present a defense?!!!!!
Presumably this was done for strategic reasons, but this strike me as odd, and out of keeping with Apple’s general legal posture of vigorously battling every legal charge, anywhere on earth.
If Apple doesn’t purge itself of their “Jobs revenge attacks” against their competitors then they can expect more of the same. Apple has been a bully in the business world with their supply manipulation to hamper their competition and with all of these lawsuits.
If they don’t purge the Jobs mentality then they’re going to find much of their competition joining together in an effort to take Apple down a couple of notches. Just think if a few key companies agreed to no longer supply Apple with the components that they needed at a critical time? There are plenty of ways besides lawsuits to fight back against a bully. Don’t think it could happen? How about the old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Negotiation with a little give and take will go a lot easier on Apple in the long run then fighting everyone with a winner take all attitude.
Although I agree that Apple cant’ really complain having opened this particular Pandora’s Box this is hardly “much of their competition”. Motorola is owned by Google. My money is on Samsung calling for some assistance by hinting they may prefer Redmond’s software in future.
“If Apple doesn’t purge itself of their “Jobs revenge attacks” against their competitors then they can expect more of the same. Apple has been a bully in the business world with their supply manipulation to hamper their competition and with all of these lawsuits.”
Load of crock!
” Just think if a few key companies agreed to no longer supply Apple with the components that they needed at a critical time?”
Sheesh, Are you serious? Isn’t this proposed solution worse than what you accuse Apple of? Were you picked on in school or something? I can’t think of any other reason why you would characterize Apple’s business behavior as bullying. Managing your supply chain in your own best interest is common practice. Just because there’s a side effect that it may hamper your competition does not make it anything beyond common practice.
Sounds one sided to me. Other. Other companies have been suing Apple for a long time.
I like what Apple had to say,,,,EXCEPT the last three words. Couldn’t they just put a period after “Germany”?
Sheizer!! Das ist nict good!
Meaningless decision according to Apple.
“Apple is represented by two organizations in Germany: Apple Inc., the worldwide corporate parent, and Apple Germany, the local subsidiary that actually sells products to consumers. Motorola Mobility filed lawsuits against both organizations, and while Apple Germany is vigorously fighting its case, Apple’s lawyers let the Apple Inc., lawsuit slide, resulting in this default judgement and injunction. But since Apple Inc., doesn’t actually sell anything in Germany, it’s a totally symbolic victory for Motorola — there aren’t any products to ban. Apple confirmed to us that it’ll appeal the decision anyway, and that the Apple Germany case continues to move forward. And here you thought you were going to spend yet another thrilling Friday night examining German court documents.
Apple’s official statement:
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.”
Good info, but you should give the source (Nilay Patel) and not just imply your first quotation is also from Apple.
http://www.theverge.com/
it is in the nature of technology to have patent wars, it is only a question of money in the end.
apple might pay some hundred millions to get it straight, or some more.
if you stop developing because you are not sure about infringements, your name is not apple.
if you start to discuss who was first, who held patents over years, who did not develop any breakthrough product upon its own patents, you end up discussing how much the patents payback to a less-innovative company like Motorola or Nokia.
apple is holding the key for the future in consumer technology and i am fine with that.
but competition is of course unbearable to apple as well.
so to all the androids out there: keep trying !
Uh yeah, right.
Apple hates competition!? In case you are unaware, Apple currently competes with Microsoft on the desktop, which has 90% share and they are doing fine without lawsuits.
Also, Apple got to its current share of the smartphone market, not by suing competitors, but by making a better product. They are suing them now, because other companies have seen what a real smartphone should be like and have started aping all of Apple’s inventions and IP.
Nobody seems to have noticed this:
“…any mobile devices infringing on two Motorola Mobility patents and determining that Apple owes Motorola Mobility damages for past infringement since April 19, 2003.”
Could somebody explain how Apple could have been infringing Motorola Mobile patents for three years prior to the iPhone actually being released?
Sound totally bogus to me.
Could be basic cell phone operation (GSM, 3G, etc.)?
These are FRAND patents. MM is required to license them to Apple at the same minimal price it licenses them to others. It can’t refuse. For MM to try to use these as a bargaining chip to gain access to Apple’s patents is suicide. Desperation!