Updated 11:50 am ET, Friday, December 9
Apple took a bad blow in the international mobile patent wars on Friday when a regional court in Germany ruled in favor of a preliminary injunction against Apple products, as requested by Motorola Mobility, FOSS Patents reported.
The injunction allows Motorola Mobility to post a $134 million bond to implement a ban on sales of the iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 3G and iPad2 3G in Germany. Apple had attempted to set the bond price much higher, at $2 billion, but to no avail.
It’s unclear if the recently-released iPhone 4S also falls under the ban, since the suit was filed well before that product was unveiled, but Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, a vigilant follower of the patent wars, thinks it does.
“We are pleased with the court’s ruling. Today’s decision validates Motorola Mobility’s efforts to enforce its patents against Apple’s infringement,” said Scott Offer, senior vice president and general counsel of Motorola Mobility, in a statement.
The patent that Motorola Mobility successfully argued Apple infringed is related to mobile technology, not the design of products. Specifically, the 2003 European Union patent pertains to an arcane-sounding “countdown function” for a mobile device’s remote data packet-transferring process, i.e., the technology that enables mobile devices to remotely transmit data at higher rates than necessary for just voice calls, allowing users to surf the Web and engage with real-time videos and other multimedia.
Apple has a couple of options at this point, according to Mueller, who notes that the ruling permits Apple to modify its products to remove the technology, but Mueller states that this is probably unlikely given that “this feature could be somewhat fundamental to wireless data transfers in general.”
The more likely course of action is that Apple will appeal to a higher court, the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court, for a stay to block the injunction.
Interestingly, Apple could also try again to secure the rights to license the technology from Motorola for untold sums of money under FRAND (Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory Terms).
But Apple already made an offer to Motorola Mobility to do so, which Motorola rejected and successfully defended in court, thanks to a quirk in German law that allows a company to refuse a licensing offers outright if the entity seeking the offer has infringed on the company’s patents already and said infringement damages are estimated to be in excess of the offer.
Still, Motorola didn’t rule out more FRAND licensing negotiations with Apple.
“We have been negotiating with Apple and offering them reasonable licensing terms and conditions since 2007, and will continue our efforts to resolve our global patent dispute as soon as practicable,” said Offer.
Of course, one thing important not to overlook is the fact that most of the mobile international infringement cases that have made headlines lately are just the proxy battles in the larger mobile war between Apple and Google, specifically between their dueling mobile operating systems, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
Google purchased Motorola Mobility for an estimated $12.5 billion in August, a decision that at the time was deemed “risky” and “an immense mistake” by some tech bloggers and analysts.
Although Motorola Mobility’s German patent infringement suit against Apple was filed well before that deal was announced, given how Motorla has successfully managed to mess up Apple abroad, Google’s decision — which grants the company access to all of Motorola’s extensive patent portfolio — certainly seems wiser now.
In other good news for Google’s Android operating system, Samsung on Friday also won an appeal from the Australian High Court overturning a previous Apple victory that effectively banned Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab in Australia, GigaOM reported. The new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 could hit shores Down Under within the week.
We’ve reached out to Motorola Mobility, Google and Apple for more on their respective efforts in the German case and will update when we receive a response.
Late update: Apple and Google have responded. Apple got back to TPM first, providing the following statement: “We’re going to appeal the court’s ruling right away. Holiday shoppers in Germany should have no problem finding the iPad or iPhone they want.”
Indeed, Motorola Mobility must first pay the bond to serve the injunction in order for the ban to go into effect, so Apple is still good to go — for now.
A Google spokersperson took care to point out that the Motorola Mobility acquisition is under review in the EU (and the US) and Motorola Mobility is still acting as independent company at this time, although Google has previously expressed confidence the deal will be approved.
Google’s spokesperson provided TPM with the following statement: “Our acquisition is still under regulatory review and Motorola Mobility continues to operate as an independent company.”
