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Motorola granted injunction against Xbox 360 sales in Germany, not as dramatic as it sounds
A German court has granted Motorola Mobility an injunction against the sale and/or distribution of the Xbox 360 in Germany, as well as copies of Windows 7, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, following a ruling that some of Microsoft's products violate patents that pertain to the H.264 video codec and are held by Motorola.Were Motorola to enforce this injunction, it would mean that Microsoft would lose the ability to sell its flagship products in Deutschland until the matter of Motorola's patents is settled, which would be a Very Big Deal™. Thing is, though, Motorola is currently prohibited from enforcing the injunction due to a restraining order issued by an American judge in Seattle.Microsoft argued that Motorola is abusing its "Frand-commitments," which are essentially a pinky swear that a massive company makes to the world when it is in possession of a universally required piece of technology, wherein it commits to providing licenses for said technology at "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" rates. Microsoft says that Motorola's asking price goes beyond fair and reasonable, so the judge issued the restraining order to prevent the injunction from happening until the case can be heard, which is currently scheduled to happen on May 7.Meanwhile, Microsoft is also appealing the German court's decision, and thanks to the restraining order from the American judge, it'll be able to conduct business as usual during that process. Patent infringement cases like this are all about applying pressure on both sides until one of the companies involved cracks, so we doubt that Motorola ever actually expected that it'd be able to enforce a successful injunction. The fact that it happened at all, however, despite being nullified, adds another layer of trouble and stress to Microsoft's half of the situation.It's a lot like vs. Dr. Mario, but with slightly more money involved.
Preliminary ruling: Xbox 360 infringes on some Motorola patents
An ITC ruling has found that the Xbox 360 infringes on four patents owned by Motorola. According to The Verge, some of the patents deal with the H.264 video codec, which is the subject of other legal proceedings between Microsoft and Motorola – with Motorola demanding 2.25% of the final price for any Microsoft product using the standard.Bloomberg reports that the other two are about Wi-Fi tech, and that a fifth contentious patent was about communication between the Xbox and accessories. One of the Wi-Fi patents was not infringed, and one unspecified claim regarding one of the video patents was "invalid," judge David Shaw ruled.In other proceedings related to this issue, Microsoft is seeking to force Motorola to license its "standard" patents on more "fair and reasonable terms." This preliminary ruling would seem to be a blow towards Microsoft's effort; however, it is still subject to review by a panel of six judges.
Intel CE4200 ups its set-top game with 3D support and H.264 HD encoding
We're sitting here at Intel's IDF 2010 day two keynote, and the company just announced its evolution of the Atom CE series for set-top boxes. The aptly-titled the CE4200 (formerly codenamed "Groveland") is an evolution of the CE4100, based on 45nm Atom architecture and now capable of H.264 video encoding. Four partners have been announced, including Samsung, ADB, Sagemcom, and Technicolor. Of course, CE4100 is really just starting to take hold, and given it was announced at last year's IDF, we're not holding our breath on seeing these in the immediate future. %Gallery-102187%
