[JURIST] A federal judge in Wisconsin on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by Apple alleging that Google Inc. subsidiary Motorola Mobility [corporate websites] has unfair patent licensing practices. The decision was issued [Reuters] just hours before the trial was scheduled to start. Judge Barbara Crabb of the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin [official website] did not give a reason [AP report] for the lawsuit’s dismissal. At stake were the library of patents [NYT report] that Google acquired along with Motorola for $12.5 billion in May of this year. Apple alleged that Motorola Mobility sought to institute unreasonably high license fees for the use of wireless technology patents.

In October the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany ruled [JURIST report] for Motorola Mobility in a lawsuit against Microsoft. The patent at issue, EP1233343 [text], is for technology that allows applications to work with different mobile communication hardware and cellular networks. This allows the same application to work with different mobile phones. The court found that Motorola did not infringe Microsoft’s patent. 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.