“Five days ahead of a FRAND contract trial in the Western District of Wisconsin, Apple has formally declared to the court its willingness to pay Motorola Mobility for a license to its standard-essential wireless patents (‘wireless’ meaning cellular and WiFi standards in this context), but it will only write an immediate check to the wholly-owned Google subsidiary if the per-unit royalty does not exceed $1,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “If the court sets a FRAND rate at or below $1, Apple will take a license and start to pay right away. Otherwise Apple will appeal the decision and exhaust all of its legal options before Google gets anything.”
“Apple’s lawyers made this declaration, which may be the biggest smartphone patent news on Halloween 2012, on their client’s behalf in a response to a Motorola motion for clarification. That motion was filed yesterday and pointed out that Microsoft, whose FRAND contract case against Motorola will go to trial on November 13, had explicitly committed to the conclusion of a license agreement on court-ordered terms,” Mueller reports. “Apple’s position in the somewhat similar case in Wisconsin is basically that Microsoft’s actions don’t create legal obligations for others. But Apple seeks to demonstrate to the court that it is serious about resolving the wireless SEP dispute with Motorola Mobility through a license agreement on FRAND terms.”
Mueller explains, “Apple’s position is that it wants a solution but the price must be fair.”
Read more in the full article here.