“A court in Mannheim ruled on Wednesday that Microsoft infringed Motorola Mobility’s patents and ordered Microsoft to remove its popular Xbox 360 gaming consoles and Windows 7 operating system software from the German market,” Harro Ten Wolde reports for Reuters.
“However, Microsoft said that the ruling did not mean that its products would be taken off retailers’ shelves because a U.S. district court in Seattle has granted Microsoft a preliminary injunction against Motorola to prevent the phone maker from enforcing any German court order,” Wolde reports. “‘Motorola is prohibited from acting on today’s decision, and our business in Germany will continue as usual while we appeal this decision and pursue the fundamental issue of Motorola’s broken promise,’ Microsoft said in a response to the ruling.”
Wolde reports, “The Mannheim case is related to the larger smartphone patent war being fought by Apple, Microsoft and mobile phone makers who use Google’s Android software such as Samsung. German judge Holger Kircher said on Wednesday Microsoft breached an agreement with Motorola Mobility, which is in the process of being bought by Google, in using certain video-compression software in products including Windows 7 and Xbox… Wednesday’s ruling is also expected to have little immediate impact for Microsoft’s wider European distribution operations as it has already moved its regional software distribution centre to the Netherlands from Germany in anticipation of adverse judgments in the patent trial.
Read more in the full article here.
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I’m not quite sure how a Seattle court can effectively overturn a German court decision with regards to the German market, and something tells me that were this two German companies slugging it out in the USA the reverse could never be applied.
However…saying that good for Microsoft. This current patent war nonsense has passed the point of being ridiculous when it can lead to XBox sales being halted because of a video codec.. Time for all of these companies to get into a room (or preferably a cage) and be forced to fight it out once and for all.
No, this is about IP theft that is rampant. Google is using some obscure video codec patent to be able to get away with grand theft.
I know that. Hence the idea for a cage fight between all the companies. It would be everyone kicking the crap out of Google.
I’d pay to watch 😀
+1
I’ll bring the the popcorn!
German courts knows that if they disobey they’ll get droned. Ever notice how a drone looks like a German V-Rocket, hmmm…
Hey Dave, it’s like this, the German court gave Moto a green light, so M$ sent a US Attorney with a US injunction, over to Moto’s headquarters in the USA, forcing Moto to stand down.
It’s called Rule of Law. You should check it out sometime.
Moto can go out there and stir up shit but they still have to live here.
For the record, I’m glad M$ lost. They’ve been stealing video compression software since Windows was just a Shell. Knife the Baby, indeed!
Ouch that has to hurt.
I’ll wait for Florian Mueller’s analysis. Usually this is just procedural, like when Apple had to turn off some cloud features for the iPhone.
“injunction against Motorola to prevent the phone makerfrom enforcing any German court order,”
So in Germany, companies are the ones who enforce court orders? not the police or some government department?