Apple wins important victory against Motorola in Germany
Apple won an important victory in its ongoing patent war with handset maker Motorola Mobility as a Germany court suspended the enforcement of a ruling that might allow Motorola to bar the Cupertino firm from using its "standard-essential patents" in Germany.
The Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court suspended the enforcement of a ruling by the Mannheim Regional Court, and prevented Motorola from further enforcement of its standard-essential patent injunction the iPhone/iPad-maker.
It may be noted here that Standard-essential patents are exclusive rights that are necessary to the manufacture a product; without them, the product can not be manufactured.
In December last year, a German court found that some of Apple’s devices infringe on Motorola’s patents for data packet transfer technology. The ruling led to temporary removal of Apple’s concerned products from its online store in Germany.
Blogger Florian Mueller, who translated the new ruling, wrote, "Apple knew that MMI was always going to find something to grouse about, but it needed to find out at which point the appeals court would conclude that enough is enough…”
In other words, refusing to accept Apple's proposal would itself be a breach of Germany’s antitrust law.
In the after-hours trading, Apple shares jumped 0.6 per cent to close at $525.76, while shares in Motorola slipped 0.1 per cent to close at $39.69.
