“Apple scored a breakthrough court victory today against Motorola [Mobility],” Florian Mueller writes for FOSS Patents. “Its importance can hardly be overstated. This is so huge that it even begs the question of whether Google’s strategy for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility has failed before the deal is even formally closed (they’re still waiting for some regulatory approvals).”
“The Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court (‘Oberlandesgericht Karlsruhe’), the appeals court within whose circuit the Mannheim Regional Court is based, decided today that Motorola Mobility is barred from further enforcement of its standard-essential patent injunction against Apple in Germany at least for the duration of the ongoing appeal (which I believe will take a year, if not more),” Mueller writes. “And while today’s decision is only a summary and preliminary decision that MMI could overturn during the course of the full-blown appellate proceedings, this indicates that Apple’s appeal is highly likely to succeed — and even if it didn’t, Apple could realistically resolve the problem with limited additional concessions.”
Mueller writes, “With today’s ruling, Googlorola’s strategy has failed even before the companies have formally merged. This is such a major blow to Google’s patent strategy that, from a mere shareholder value point of view, it should now give serious consideration to the possibility of coughing up the $2.5 billion break-up fee agreed upon with MMI’s board of directors and walk out on this deal. After all, that $2.5 billion payment would be an affordable subsidy for the only totally Google-aligned company among the major handset makers. But in all likelihood, Google will nevertheless try to close the deal, if only to avoid a colossal embarrassment for its CEO and other decision-makers.”
Read more in the full article – highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Google’s going to rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them.” – MacDailyNews Take, March 09, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Apple racks up FRAND win against Motorola Mobility in Germany – February 27, 2012
Eric A. Hole. Never trust a Mole wearing a pink cowboy hat. Ye HAW! Eh MOLE?
Have no illusions…he is NOT Canadian eh?
Speaking of Eric Mole…didn’t he just file to sell about a billion and a half dollars of Google stock? As they say often enough in Washington DC, “What did he know, and when did he know it?”. I wonder how much advance warning Google executives had that the odds were not in their favor in this litigation. Days? Weeks? Calling SEC…..
Much wailing and gnashing of teeth…it couldn’t happen to a more deserving combo – Googerola. Dare we hope this will stick and not be ‘lobby’d’ around?
Googlerola? Sounds a bit like that medieval priest Savonarola.
Are you suggesting that Googlerola be burnt at the stake in Florence?
A Fair and Not Discriminatory Decision
Byebye Motoroogle.
ah, but you’re all forgetting the other strategic reason Google is buying Moto. to very soon sell its own line of Android hardware products. phones, tablets, TV STB units, everything. Google wants to be an OEM with its own ecosystem, just like all the others. the patents were just a bonus, not the main agenda. so there is -0- zero chance Goolge will back out of the Moto purchase.
And exactly what operating system does Google hope to run on its OEM hardware? Windows? Android is having dirt shoveled in its face as we speak.
While I agree with you that google has other reasons to buy motorola, that other reason will hurt them a lot more since having its own hardware will make their partners to go away. Sammy already is turning back to Bada, LG, HTC and ZTE are turning back to windows. So at the end, Google- motorola deal was always a lose lose for both of them.
yes, the other OEM’s will go their own way. but Google relized there is far more long term revenue/profit potential in selling Google hardware than mere Android ads. not to mention their total envy of Apple.
“Patents were just a bonus”??? Not even close. The cot-case manufacturing business is worth almost nothing, and if that’s all there was to it Google would probably have been better to start from scratch than to inherit MM’s massive problems. No baby, $12B was all about the patents… worse, nobody but Google thought they were worth anything. With management like that, not wonder the stock is tanking.
lol,
Motorola is FAILED hardware concern.
it loses money every quarter. Samsung etc whack it silly every quarter in android sales.
it’s management is dysfunctional.
and Page has ZERO hardware expertise. So a ZERO is going to run ‘the dysfunctional’ ?
Steve Jobs started building hardware software with the Woz in a garage decades ago that’s why apple succeeded, HARDWARE is tough (that’s why past masters like IBM have given up on building PCs and HP is considering to follow suit ) therefore to think Page a hardware ZERO can emulate Apple… lol.
Besides the software dudes in Google can’t even originate OS SOFTWARE without stealing, re: losing lawsuits to Apple, Msft, oracle, so we assume these dudes (who have no big original success since Search 10 years ago) can deal with HARDware?
Yesterday a lose for Apple today its a win?
Crazy man! Must read the details.
Google really has no strategic savvy when you observe its business moves of the past several years. There is no sense of discipline or long-term thinking in what they do. They don’t seem to think about the consequences of their decisions and what scenarios will evolve. It’s just: “Let’s throw all this stuff we have at the wall, see what sticks and just discard whatever falls to the floor.” Google has a very messy floor right now and it’s getting messier by the day. They’ll soon have to deal with the cleanup.
Exactly!
They now have custard π on their face
[yes, I know that’s what they bid for Nortel, or something]