Apple vs. Motorola: patent infringement, antitrust accusations, and more
The patent battles between Apple and Motorola may have started out a bit quieter than what we first saw with Apple and Samsung, but things have really begun to heat up. The fight began when Motorola sued Apple in the US in 2010 — claiming infringement of over a dozen patents — but has since expanded to nearly every outpost around the world. There's a little bit of everything in this one: antitrust accusations, bans on beloved gadgets, potential government intervention and, of course, good old-fashioned patent infringement. With a June 2012 ruling by US District Court Judge Richard Posner, a substantial portion of the legal activity between these two companies has come to a close (pending appeal), but action continues on other fronts. We're keeping track of it all right here.
Apple and Google patent dispute has no end in sight, judge says
Apple and Google's ongoing, multi-venue, litigation war over mobile patents has "no end" in sight, according to a US district court judge in Miami, Florida, who excoriated both companies for using their lawsuits as "business strategy," in an order issued yesterday. "The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end," wrote Judge Robert Scola....
Judge rules that Samsung did not infringe Apple patents willfully
Tonight one of the big outstanding issues in the Apple vs. Samsung case came to a close when Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Samsung's infringement of Apple patents was not in fact willful. At issue are the seven design and utility patents that the jury found Samsung had infringed in a $1.049 billion win for Apple last August. The jury had decided that Samsung's infringement in five of the instances had in fact been willful — a finding that could have led to a ballooning of the damages Samsung...
Eric Schmidt says it's 'extremely curious' that Apple lawsuits don't target Google directly
If you've been left a little nonplussed by Apple's lawsuits against Android hardware manufacturers, Google chairman Eric Schmidt is wondering the same thing. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt said it's "extremely curious that Apple has chosen to sue Google's partners and not Google itself." Apple recently settled its patent disputes with HTC out of court, and most famously won a protracted legal battle against Samsung earlier this year.
However, it's not too hard to see...
Motorola drops latest ITC patent infringement claims against Apple
Back in August Motorola filed a new round of patent infringement claims against Apple with the US International Trade Commission, seeking an import ban on the iPhone and the iPad — but in a recent filing the company mysteriously withdrew the complaints. It's unclear just what led Google-owned Motorola to make the move; normally we'd expect this type of withdrawal if a settlement was near, but in the filing itself Motorola specifically states that "There are no agreements between Motorola...
Samsung: today's verdict 'a loss for the American consumer'
Samsung has already issued a statement commenting on its devastating loss in its legal tussle with Apple. The company pulls no punches, calling back to the stirring language it used in its closing arguments. We're reproducing it in its entirety below.
Today's verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one...
Motorola files new patent case against Apple with ITC, wants import ban on iPhone and iPad (updated)
The patent battle continues anew between Apple and Motorola this week with the Google subsidiary filing a fresh patent case with the US International Trade Commission today. Details of the claims aren't yet available, but The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Motorola is alleging that Cupertino is in violation of seven patents — none of which are considered standards-essential (that is, Motorola is under no obligation to license the patents under FRAND terms). Motorola says that Apple...
Policy & Law
German Court rejects Apple's claim that Motorola Xoom tablet infringes on iPad design
While Apple has had some success enforcing its iPad design patent rights against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices around the world, it's beginning to look like other tablet designs are increasingly more likely to avoid the same misfortune. Dow Jones is reporting that the Dusseldorf Regional Court in Germany today rejected claims that Motorola's Xoom tablet infringes Apple's European design registration on the iPad. The same court ruled earlier this year that the redesigned Galaxy Tab 10.1N...
Apple
In wake of Apple v. Motorola, Judge Posner speaks: 'it's not clear that we really need patents in most industries'
When Richard Posner, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, senior lecturer for the University of Chicago Law School, and author of dozens of books on jurisprudence and economics says that "it's not clear that we really need patents in most industries," that's a big deal. During his talk with Reuters, he spoke about his recent dismissal of the Apple v. Motorola case and his stance on patent law.
Posner doesn't blame these companies for trying to compete in the courtroom —...
Apple v. Motorola: Judge Posner dismisses entire patent case, no injunctions to be issued (update)
In US federal court this evening, Judge Richard Posner just ruled that the case of Apple v. Motorola will be dismissed in its entirety. The case, in which Apple alleged Motorola was in violation of four of its patents and Motorola was left with one claim in return (the patent counts had originally been higher on both sides), had been in litigation since 2010, most recently with a hearing in Chicago this past Wednesday.
"No more can Apple be permitted to force a trial in federal court the sole...
Android
Apple v. Motorola: Judge Posner grills both sides on issue of product bans
Attorneys for both Apple and Motorola appeared before renowned judge Richard A. Posner this morning in a Chicago federal courtroom in an attempt to explain why the court should order an injunction against the other's products. Posner made headlines recently for tentatively dismissing the case altogether before ultimately deciding to give both parties another chance to prove that either side has demonstrated the need for an injunction against the other's products that could prevent sales and...
Mobile
Judge gives Apple another chance to prove that Motorola infringed its patents
Judge Richard Posner harshly dismissed Apple and Motorola's patent trial last week, but in a new order issued yesterday, has decided to give Apple an opportunity to prove whether it deserves an injunction — even if it doesn't receive any damages from its adversary. Posner says that both Apple and Motorola may argue that they are deserving of injunctive relief, and have until Monday, June 18th to submit briefs. It's still a real possibility that Posner won't give Apple or Motorola anything,...
Apple v. Motorola patent case dismissed by frustrated judge
The Apple vs. Motorola patent trial scheduled to start on Monday has now been dismissed with prejudice by Judge Richard Posner, who says that "neither party can establish a right to relief." We'd heard earlier that Judge Posner had canceled the start of the trial but didn't know the extent of his decision to close down proceedings; his latest order makes it clear that neither party has put forth what he considers to be a valid case.
Posner's been openly frustrated with both Motorola and Apple...
FTC: using FRAND patents to block iPhone and Xbox would cause 'substantial harm'
It was just last week that FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said he was "enormously concerned" about technology firms abusing standards-related patents in the global smartphone patent wars, and today his agency is asking the US International Trade Commission to carefully reconsider banning products like the Xbox 360 that allegedly infringe upon patents that are required to be fairly licensed as part of standards agreements. It's a major milestone in what has become a serious international dispute...
Apple
Judge cancels Apple v. Motorola trial scheduled for next week (update)
Bloomberg is reporting that Federal Judge Richard A. Posner has canceled the Apple v. Motorola Mobility patent infringement trial originally set to start on June 11. Judge Posner apparently issued this order during a pre-trial hearing today, so we don't yet have the written order in front of us. It's not unusual for trial dates to get shifted around, although this one was admittedly at the eleventh hour.
Update: We've now learned that Posner canceled the jury trial because the parties were...
Mobile
Apple again annoys Judge Posner in case against Motorola
Less than a month after publicly scorning Apple's practices in his court, renowned federal judge Richard A. Posner is again calling out Apple in its patent case against Motorola — this time with an explicit warning that it may be forbidden from filing future motions without express permission from the court. The current courtroom drama centers around a motion Apple recently filed, asking the court to stop the deposition of one of its experts. On its face, that doesn't seem particularly...
ITC judge: Apple iPhones and iPads infringe single Motorola patent
An administrative law judge at the US International Trade Commission issued a preliminary ruling today in Motorola's patent infringement case against Apple — holding that iPhone and iPad devices infringe US patent no. 6,246,697. As with all preliminary rulings at the ITC, this decision is subject to review by a full panel of ITC judges, so there won't be any immediate impact on the sales of iOS devices in the near term.
The '697 patent covers a method of generating a pseudonoise sequence in...
iCloud and MobileMe push email ban upheld by German court
The Wall Street Journal reports that a German regional court in Mannheim has upheld an earlier ruling that push email via Apple's iCloud and MobileMe services infringes on Motorola's patents. The February decision led to push email being disabled on the services ever since, despite Apple's attempts to lift the injunction. Motorola's case is based on patent EP0847654, titled "Multiple Pager Status Synchronization System and Method." The judge residing over the case adjourned a decision on a...
Policy & Law
US court adopts Apple's broad interpretation of scrolling patent, rejects Motorola's
Apple won an important victory on Thursday against Motorola in the form of a claim construction order from US Judge Richard A. Posner, interpreting the meaning of certain claim language in Apple's US Patent No. 7,479,949 relating to scrolling behavior. While the court didn't provide a decisive infringement ruling, it did get Apple one step closer to that ultimate goal by adopting its broad interpretation of the patent. The judge was tasked this time with construing claims in the '949 patent...
Policy & Law
ITC issues final ruling, says Motorola doesn't infringe three Apple patents
The web of patent lawsuits between Apple and Motorola may have just thinned out a strand. Back in January, Motorola Mobility received an initial ruling from the ITC regarding Apple's 2010 patent infringement claim, finding that it didn't infringe on the three patents in question. Now, the ITC is handing down its final determination, backing up the original finding and terminating the ITC's investigation into the matter. While this marks the end of the road for the Commission's current...
Apple
iCloud and MobileMe push email will remain disabled in Germany during Apple's appeal
According to the FOSS Patents blog, a German appeals court has denied Apple's bid to suspend an injunction imposed on iCloud and MobilMe push notification services in Germany. The Mannheim Regional Court ruled last month that certain Apple email services were infringing a Motorola patent (EP0847654), and Motorola began enforcing the injunction just a few weeks later.
Apple appealed the lower court ruling and had requested that the appeals court lift the injunction until a final decision is...
Apple opening patent settlement talks with Motorola, Samsung?
We've always assumed that the worldwide patent battles between Apple and Android smartphone manufacturers would end in a tidal wave of settlements, and it appears the first trickles of hope are leaking out: Dow Jones is reporting that Apple's proposed settlements with both Samsung and Motorola in exchange for license royalties on its patents. It's not the first time Cupertino's proposed a settlement in its smartphone patent litigation: Apple famously settled its patent lawsuit with Nokia by...
Policy & Law
Slide to unlock: how Apple's patents are changing Android
Although the worldwide patent lawsuits between Apple and nearly every major Android smartphone vendor have been bitterly fought and may eventually involve government intervention, there's really no day-to-day impact on the consumer — Apple, Google, and its OEMs continue to improve and sell their devices as quickly as they can. But a quick tour through the halls of Mobile World Congress reveals that Android OEMs are rapidly learning to design around some of Apple's iPhone-related patents,...
Android
Apple wins German sales injunction against Motorola Android products, probably won't affect anyone
Apple just won a German sales injunction against Motorola Android devices, which were found to infringe an Apple patent on scrolling behavior in the photo gallery application. It's the second major legal victory related to this patent Apple's had in the past few months; it won a similar injunction against Samsung in the Netherlands in October.
Of course, a legal victory really just means more cash for the lawyers — like Samsung, Motorola can just update its photo gallery app to work around...
Policy & Law
Appeals court puts a stop to Motorola's ban on iPhones and iPads in Germany
Apple received some good news today in Germany in the form of a ruling from the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court stopping Motorola, at least temporarily, from enforcing a previous ban it had received on the sales of iPhone and iPad devices in the country. The device ban was initially handed down by a lower court back in December and caused Apple to remove certain iPhones and 3G-enabled iPads from its German online store for a few hours earlier this month.
Apple's main defense continues to be...
Apple
iCloud and MobileMe push email disabled on iOS devices in Germany due to Motorola lawsuit
Following a German court ruling earlier this month that deemed Apple's email sync services were in breach of a Motorola patent, the Cupertino company has decided to disable the offending functionality on iOS devices in the country. Push email to iCloud and MobileMe accounts will no longer work within German borders, although your Contacts and Calendar will continue to sync as normal. Similarly, Microsoft Exchange email sync (popularly used with Gmail accounts) and push services to desktop or...
Policy & Law
Microsoft says Motorola and Google will 'kill video on the web' with patents, files European complaint
Microsoft announced this morning that it's filed a formal competition complaint against Motorola and Google with the European Commission, arguing that Motorola is abusing its patents committed to Wi-Fi and H.264 video by demanding excessive royalties and trying to block sales of products that include the standards. The move follows a similar complaint filed by Apple with the EU last week and an official investigation into Samsung's patent licensing practices, and serves to highlight growing...
Apple asks EU to formally investigate Motorola for alleged FRAND abuse
Motorola Mobility has confirmed that Apple filed a complaint with the EU Commission, requesting an investigation into whether Motorola is violating its obligations to license its standards-essential patents to Apple under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. The EU Commission recently opened a formal investigation into whether Samsung broke EU antitrust rules by refusing to fairly license wireless patents essential to the 3G standard, but this is the first we've heard of the...
Policy & Law
FRANDs forever: how the smartphone industry turned a gentlemen's agreement into a full-scale patent war
Until recently, patent licensing arrangements for industry standards like MPEG and 802.11 have been relatively benign and invisible to the general public. Times have changed, though, and the explosion of smartphone patent litigation has made the once unfamiliar acronym FRAND the subject of mainstream conversations. In particular, there's a major debate over the fairness of patent licenses and how patents essential to wireless standards like 3G can be used in litigation. It's a wonky and...
Apple
Apple uses slide-to-unlock patent to get ban on Motorola smartphones in Germany
The worldwide patent dispute between Apple and Motorola has been burning through the courts lately, and it just got a little more intense: the Munich Regional Court ruled today that Motorola smartphones infringe Apple's European slide-to-unlock patent. Unlike some of previous European rulings, the decision imposes a permanent injunction against Motorola devices, when or if Apple choses to enforce it after posting a substantial bond. We don't have all of the details of the ruling — it was...
Apple
Apple tries to stop Motorola patent cases in Germany, via US court
We've seen the harmonization of Apple's patent defense strategies develop against Samsung over the past several months, and now it looks like Apple is extending these strategies to its defenses against Motorola. According to a report by Reuters, Apple filed a new case in California federal court today, claiming Motorola's patent infringement cases against Apple in Germany breach Motorola's licensing agreement with San Diego-based Qualcomm. This matches up with Apple's defenses against Samsung...
Policy & Law
Motorola faces rare setback, fails to get injunction against Apple 3G devices in Germany
Apple experienced a rare patent victory against Motorola Mobility today in Germany when a Mannheim court held that Apple's 3G devices, including the iPhone, didn't infringe European Patent No. 1053613. This particular technical patent covers a wireless system that generates a "complex pseudonoise sequence" for processing access signals. The patent claims may be a bit opaque, but it doesn't look like it really matters. Unlike most court decisions focused on a finding of non-infringement, this...
Google letter promises to license Motorola's standards patents after acquisition
Google just sent letters out to various standards organizations, including the IEEE, promising to license Motorola's patents related to standards like 3G and H.264 after it completes its planned acquisition of the company. The move doesn't signal any change in policy, but is rather a bit of well-timed showmanship by Google: Motorola already has obligations to license "essential" patents to various standards under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms, but the deal is being...
Policy & Law
Motorola gets patent ruling against Apple's email services in Germany
The Mannheim Regional Court in Germany issued an injunction this morning against Apple, ruling that certain Apple email services infringed Motorola patent no. EP0847654. The ban is apparently focused on push email features available through Apple's iCloud and MobileMe services. However, unlike a separate ban Apple faced this morning relating to certain Apple 3G devices in Germany (which has now been temporarily suspended), the effect of this ruling will not be felt immediately. Namely,...
Policy & Law
Apple forced to remove 3G iPad 2, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 from German online store (update)
Apple has been forced to remove its 3G iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 devices from the online German Apple store today, following a dispute with Motorola Mobility. FOSS Patents reports that the decision is likely due to a ruling from December, and not related to an iCloud injunction issued against Apple Sales International today. Motorola appears to have posted a €100m ($133m) bond to enforce the ruling.
The dispute centers on a patent held by Motorola essential to the GPRS standard, and...
Policy & Law
Motorola adds iPhone 4S and iCloud to Apple patent litigation
The ongoing patent dispute between Motorola Mobility and Apple has become almost as heated as the battle raging between Apple and Samsung. Motorola added to the mix by filing a new patent case against Apple yesterday in Florida federal court, accusing Apple of infringing six patents with its iPhone 4S product and iCloud service.
While this particular case may be new, the substance of the accusations really aren't. MMI already has a case pending against Apple, in Florida, where it has asserted...
Policy & Law
Motorola gets initial ruling from the US International Trade Commission that it doesn't infringe Apple's patents
Motorola Mobility announced today that it has received a ruling from the US International Trade Commission relating to its patent infringement case with Apple. Apple initiated this case against MMI back in October 2010. While the details of the actual decision are not yet publicly available through the ITC website, MMI indicates that the administrative law judge at the ITC held that it didn't infringe any of the three patents Apple had asserted against the mobile devices in the case.
MMI is...
Motorola wins German patent case against Apple, can ban sales of iPhone, iPad (update: holiday sales unaffected)
Motorola's just scored a fairly big victory in its ongoing worldwide case against Apple: a German court has ruled that every iPhone up to the iPhone 4S and both 3G iPads infringe a Motorola patent held essential to the GPRS standard. (The iPhone 4S simply wasn't around when Motorola filed the case; it's likely but not certain it contains the same infringing elements.) Unlike the previous Motorola victory in Germany, this one has some actual teeth: Motorola can post a €100m ($133m) bond and...
Policy & Law
Motorola wins German patent injunction against Apple, but it's not what it seems
The international patent wars seemed to have gotten far hotter for a moment this evening, as FOSS Patents reported that Motorola Mobility had won a German injunction against Apple that could theoretically prevent the company from selling its various products. Apple's since confirmed the report with a brief statement, but unfortunately for those of us who love late-night legal fireworks, a little more digging reveals the situation isn't at all what it first appears.
Apple is represented by two...
Apps & Software
Google and Motorola: what are all those patents for?
Google tried to present its $12.5b acquisition of Motorola as an opportunity to "supercharge the Android ecosystem," but it's clear that the deal was equally prompted out of desire to protect Android from further patent lawsuits using Motorola's strong patent portfolio. From all appearances, it actually seems like Google was first interested in somehow licensing or buying Motorola's patents, and then decided it would be nice to spend a little more and just buy the whole damn company. Of...
Android
Google to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion
Explosive news this morning, kids. Google has agreed to purchase Motorola's recently spun-off Mobility arm for a fee of $12.5 billion. Mobility was the name given to Motorola's consumer devices unit, which includes the Droid smartphone line and the nascent Xoom tablet range, both of which rely on Google's Android software for their operating system. Motorola was alone among the major smartphone vendors in not joining Microsoft's Windows Phone reboot and its loyalty to the Android ecosystem...
