“Following a hearing in the morning, a federal judge in the Western District of Wisconsin has canceled an Apple v. Motorola Mobility trial that was scheduled to start today at 1 PM Central Time and has dismissed the entire case with prejudice, meaning that the only way Apple can salvage these claims is through an appeal (but not through refiling in another U.S. district court),” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents.
“When Apple took the position, in response to Motorola’s motion, that it would only accept to be bound by the court’s determination if the royalty doesn’t exceed $1 per iPhone, Judge Barbara B. Crabb reacted negatively and started to wonder whether there was any point in having the FRAND trial that the court and the parties had already prepared for,” Mueller reports. “Yesterday, Motorola’s lawyers sought to reinforce the court’s skepticism while Apple justified its $1 position with the fact that Motorola might later refuse to pay a royalty to Apple, for its own wireless SEPs, based on the same methodology. Apple made two alternative proposals for the way forward: either Motorola could accept to be bound by the principles the court would establish in this case or Apple proposed to build an evidentiary record, over the next 6-9 months or so, and hold a trial setting a rate for a wireless SEP cross-license.”
Mueller reports, “Apparently, Judge Crabb was not persuaded by Apple’s last-minute proposal and determined that there was no case worth holding a trial… Apple can and, I’m sure, will appeal this dismissal. In the meantime, Google, which owns and totally controls Motorola Mobility (Google employees sometimes appear at patent trials as Motorola corporate representatives), may come under pressure from the Federal Trade Commission, which may bring an antitrust lawsuit over the issue of SEP abuse… The Wisconsin situation has no bearing on the Microsoft v. Motorola Mobility FRAND contract trial scheduled to start in the Western District of Washington next week (on Tuesday, November 13, to be precise).”
Read more in the full article here.
It happens…
The frand dispute, started by Samsung and continued by Google/Motorolla was born out of desperation and is incredibly short-sighted. Neither company has any chance of having its future technology accepted by a standards-setting panel from now on, and the European and US authorities will now be forced to legislate to ensure that frand-related patents are not abused. In the meantime, both the EU and the US are considering anti-trust action against Google.
Having opened Pandora’s box, Samsung and Google find themselves with the most to lose – and no upside: the Apple steamroller rolls on regardless…
i feel the EU is likely to adopt legislation which will fix the royalty rate at the time of setting new standards, and restrict the royalties to a single component – ie: a wireless standard will only be subject to royalties once, most likely on the broadband chip, not again on the finished product.
Alternately, the EU could adopt a more radical position, denying patents for any technology deemed to be essential. The EU’s patience may be wearing thin…
Well said.
Totally agree
We can only hope they adopt your wise thinking.
In this case let us hope the guv’ment gets it’s case right against Google and knocks disingenuous thief Eric Schmidt’s front teeth out.
They won’t because the gorrment is as corrupt as it gets.
Schmidt has that covered.
Paul sure is different. I can tell you that much.
politicians: maybe they are terrified that for some reason negative articles on them suddenly go to the top of search rankings while their own websites and positive comments dissapear to page 37 of search results and youtube videos making fun of them suddenly appear on the front youtube page…
Politicians are most frightened off is : Negative Spin…
As masters of media manipulation they are frightened of Google the current master of the media.
Note how politicians keep harping on Apple for exporting jobs to China WHILE NEVER condemning Google for giving STOLEN U.S intellectual property: Android to FOREIGN companies for FREE (i.e no taxes gained) to compete with American companies like Apple, Msft, HP etc. Indirectly Google employs a heck of a lot more foreigners via Lenovo , Acer, Samsung etc than Apple via Foxconn ever did. Yet not ONE WORD EVER from politicos… just Apple exporting jobs to China…
Very good point.
Apparently he didn’t want to be confused for me … ROFL
Some judges are just craps.
Apple works so hard, now they are screed big time!
I think the news must be spread in the media and to regular people of how Google (Not Motorola. Google owns Motorola now) is behaving. All negative light is shining on Apple now, not always deserved.