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German court grants injunction against Apple for infringement of Motorola patents (update: Apple responds)
Motorola just confirmed that earlier today, the Mannheim District Court in Germany granted a default judgment in its case against Apple that bars the sale of Apple products in Deutschland. In addition to the confirmation, Motorola also issued the following, rather unrevealing statement: "As media and mobility continue to converge, Motorola Mobility's patented technologies are increasingly important for innovation within the wireless and communications industries, for which Motorola Mobility has developed an industry leading intellectual property portfolio. We will continue to assert ourselves in the protection of these assets, while also ensuring that our technologies are widely available to end-users. We hope that we are able to resolve this matter, so we can focus on creating great innovations that benefit the industry."The ruling comes as a role reversal of sorts for Apple, which most recently received a pair of injunctions in Germany, banning the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in that country, along with the rather embarrassing removal of the Tab 7.7 from the show floor at IFA. According to FOSS Patents this is a default judgment, meaning Apple did not respond to Moto's filing and as a result got hit with the injunction, which could result in its products being pulled or the company being required to pay damages. And so the saga continues... Dust off the pocket translator and hit up the source link for the full ruling in German.Update: We just got the following statement from Apple regarding the ruling: "This is a procedural issue, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case. It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time."So, it appears our iDevice-loving German friends have nothing to worry about, at least for now.Update (11/7): FOSSPatents has posted a second update accessing the procedural rules, how they (might) affect this case and whether or not Apple has anything to worry about. If you can't get enough FRAND and Zivilprozessordnung news you can read through it -- we'll just hang on until the courts make another decision or someone's products actually get pulled from shelves.
Shocker! WiLAN drums up another lawsuit, this time against big cable
As the saying goes, every time an iPhone is dropped, another wide sweeping patent lawsuit in the tech world sprouts up in the plaintiff-friendly US District courts of east Texas. Okay, so perhaps there's no factual basis for that, but who knows if the latest case filed by suit-happy Canadian wireless company WiLAN against Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter Communications is any more legitimate. The dispute is over US patent No. 5,661,602, which is one of the company's 970 issued or pending patents, and was awarded in 1998. It covers "hybrid multichannel data transmission systems utilizing a broadcast medium" -- a.k.a. the broadcasting of data to remote networks and computers. WiLAN has tapped their ole' favorite US law firm, McKool Smith for the case, and asserts that the big cable triumvirate is in violation of the patent, though a spokesperson for Comcast did note they had not been served with a complaint just yet. Sadly (or not-so-sadly, depending on perspective) we can't take part in the gavel swinging, but considering that WiLAN filed suit against Alcatel-Lucent, Sony Ericsson and LG last month, and sued Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo in April, there's plenty of evidence that this outfit's lawyers are the hardest working employees on the payroll.
Qualcomm announces ITC's probe of Nokia
Apparently, Qualcomm was serious when they asked Nokia to halt sales of GSM phones in the US a few weeks ago, triumphantly announcing that the US International Trade Commission (ITC) has now gotten in on the action. The ITC is looking into whether Nokia is in violation of the six patents Qualcomm claims them to be, presumably some of the same CDMA-related patents that have come up several times before -- patents that Nokia licenses for its CDMA handsets, but GSM and UMTS devices (which apparently tread on the same patent work) are not covered by the agreement. With Nokia potentially phasing out its CDMA business citing (in part) unfair licensing terms with Qualcomm, they don't exactly have the option of going the same route on the GSM front, so this battle looks set to play out to the bitter end. Meanwhile, we're going to start hoarding N93s in case things go south in a hurry.
