JURIST - Paper Chase: Germany court rules for Motorola in Microsoft patent dispute

[JURIST] The Mannheim Regional Court in Germany ruled for Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Google, against Microsoft [corporate websites] on Friday. This was the fourth decision [FOSS Patents report] in a suit between Motorola and Microsoft to be issued this year, all of which were countersuits by Microsoft against claims by Motorola. All of the prior decisions had come down in Microsoft's favor up to this point. The patent at issue, EP1233343 [text], is for technology that allows applications to work with different mobile communication hardware and cellular networks [FOSS Patents report]. This allows the same application to work with different mobile phones. The court found that Motorola did not infringe Microsoft's patent. Microsoft is expected to appeal the ruling.

Motorola has been very active in German courts both seeking to protect and asserting its intellectual property. In September Apple [corporate website] won an injunction against Motorlola for infringing EP2126788 [JURIST report] which covered "rubber-banding" technology in scrolling lists. In July a German court granted an injunction for Microsoft against Motorola in a patent infringement case over EP0618540 [JURIST report] which involved technology relating to common names for long and short file allocation tables. Also in July a German court dismissed a patent infringement suit by Microsoft over EP1304891 [JURIST report] which monitors different functions on a smartphone and provides such information to other applications utilizing them. Another case that was brought by Microsoft against Motorola Mobility involving a patent on system input methods is postponed to September 20. In February Apple sued Motorola in the US District Court for the Southern District of California [official website] seeking an injunction [JURIST report] to stop Motorola from bringing patent claims against Apple in Germany, alleging that the German suit violates a licensing agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm.