“Apple Inc. (AAPL) won a German appeals court ruling temporarily blocking the enforcement of a patent verdict obtained by Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI) in December,” Karin Matussek reports for Bloomberg.
“Motorola Mobility, which forced Apple to remove some iPad and iPhone models from its German online store for a short period, can’t enforce the verdict during an appeal,” Matussek reports. “The ruling was issued after the iPad maker revised license-agreement terms it offered Motorola Mobility, the court said in an e-mailed statement today. ‘At the current state of the proceedings, it is to be assumed that Motorola Mobility would violate its duties under antitrust rules if it continues to ask Apple to stop the sales,’ the court said in a statement.”
Matussek reports, “Today’s case concerned a so-called standard essential [FRAND] patent that companies must license to competitors because they can’t produce the devices without the technology… Motorola Mobility, based in Libertyville, Illinois, would violate its duties if it doesn’t accept the new offer and thus can’t make use of the verdict during an appeal, the court said. It didn’t disclose details of Apple’s offer.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Edward Weber” for the heads up.]
That crackling sound you hear is what $12 billion sounds like when it’s lit on fire.
Lighting it on fire would at least return some value (heat)…
Excellent. Wonder what Motorola’s real stragedy was with this suit? They know they had to fail. You can’t just rewrite basic FRAND rules and concepts on a whim or extreme competitive advantage. I really hope Motorola proves to be Google’s folly.
They were asking for an inordinate money for the license, which Apple refused to pay (if I recall the case correctly).
It was completely outrageous, 2 1/2% of sales, it is, in the wildest scenario, at least an order of magnitude out of line.
Goog thought they could strong arm Apple into a trade for iPhone interface patents (because, boy do they have it patented). Apple said “No, give us a reasonable price for the FRAND license”. Goog’s response was to file against Apple in court (Ger.) Apple didn’t show for the hearing (strategic?… likely), and so goog (moto) was granted the ban (based on FRAND patents)
Apple then presented the court with it’s reasons (excessive FRAND pricing in an attempt to strong-arm IP from apple) and the appeals court sided with Apple, that for goog to ask an excessive license pricing for a FRAND encumbered patent in an attempt to force licensing is tantamount to extortion.
Neat summary!
“Extortion” keeps coming up as we proceed through this lawsuits. Proview extortion. Motorola extortion. Samesung extortion….
It’s kind of amusing to watch these Bad Biznizz companies abuse other companies as well as their customers. Abuse for one and all! Thank you Apple for being a serious professional company with capitalist standards, unlike the status quo of criminal and Marketing Moron bad attitude companies.
Abuse: The Spirit of the Age. Have fun with that BizTards.
Not to mention the fact that Apple doesn’t make it’s own broadband chips. It buys them from Qualcomm. Qualcomm already pays to license tech from moto. Therefore, Apple has already paid for the license because it’s built into the price of the chip.
“Stragedy” = tragic+strategy. I like it. 🙂
If Google had just kept good faith with the public at large and continued to put all their efforts into expansion and development of their once brilliant innovation potential instead of ill intended, bad faith world domination and power efforts they could have gone far.
Now they just want everything and have lost all resonablentrust and will do anything including buying Motorolla, just to pull patent brakes and disruption on Apple and other companies…
Google lost the world’s trust and with that their future fortune .
FRAND standards will continue to to be enforced.
Mulahrola….
The scent of hair burning off Motorola’s hot head.