“Apple Inc. said it may face as much as 2 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in lost sales if a German court rules in favor of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. in a patent-infringement case over mobile devices” Karin Matussek reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple lawyers argued at a hearing in Mannheim that if Motorola Mobility won the case and received an order that forced Apple to halt sales of some products, Motorola Mobility should post the amount in a bond to cover any damages caused while the case is on appeal,” Matussek reports. “Apple denies infringing the Motorola Mobility patent, which relates to e-mail account synchronization.”
Matussek reports, “The court will issue a ruling on Feb. 3.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sarah,” “Judge Bork,” and “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
I know very little about this industry, but more I think about it, Apple would have done well if it could secure as many licenses as possible a year or two before introducing the iPhone.
What, and blow the cover of what they were about to do???
Actually, they did exactly that. Apple did what every respectable company does, their due diligence with respect to any possible patent infringement. It is rather impossible, though, to research every patent granted out there and check to make sure none of your components, systems, functions and features accidentally looks and works like that patent.
So, what Apple then does is wait until someone comes forward with a claim and then just licenses whatever’s applicable. Unless the claim is baseless, of course.
As a German I say: Never again a product from Motorola. Unfortunately it means nothing to them. They cannot lose any money since I never had anything from Motorola. Less is not possible.
I did have one of their cheap cell phones. It died. I tossed it. I bought a better brand. I like it much better. That’s the way the market works. So long Motorola. 😛
boycott motorola.
Now if the same court would ban all Androids, that would be justice.
Google could suffer $0.00 in lost sales if Apple sues Google for copying iOS.
Save up your money for the day of the verdict, AAPL is sure to tank temporarily if Moto wins. There’s nothing like making a profit on histrionic news reports.
This is complete BS from the headline to the analysis, and MDN should know better! At least revise the headline! Or do you intend to short AAPL, MDN?
First, the patents in question are FRAND patents. It’s assumed that anyone who makes a product using these patents will license them and pay the going reasonable rate that everyone else already using them does. This is NOT an attempt to evade any patent held by Motorola Mobility.
Second, the statement is from Apple’s lawyers in the case, who are arguing that MM needs to buy a bond to cover any POSSIBLE losses to Apple while the case is being litigated IF THE COURT GRANTS A SALES INJUNCTION. OF COURSE, they are going to ask for the worst possible case. It DOES NOT mean that Apple is in any jeopardy of losing that amount in sales in the real world.
I’m ashamed of you, MDN.
What Motorola is trying to do here is use FRAND patents to threaten Apple with an injunction that would stop Apple sales so that Motorola can use the threat of that injunction to bargain with Apple over the Apple Non-FRAND patents that Motorola has willfully violated.
Sheesh!
According to Apple’s own admission, as reported by FOSS’s Florian Mueller, these aren’t FRAND patents.
“Apple has not raised any standards-related defenses with respect to this one. Apple’s counsel said that they’re not currently aware of any industry standard this patent is essential to.”
Finally, most of the threads in this site are unoriginal pieces. MDN simply reports snippets of other people’s opinions/news stories, with links (sometimes broken) to the original, accompanied by occasional “takes” as needed.
What’s wrong? They printed exactly that.
Its an easy solution really. Apple should just stop stealing Motorola’s IP
😉
(Sorry could not resist, I see that posted so often about other companies who are believed to infringe against apple patents)
Hey Dude dumbo, u know what a FRAND patent is?