A court in Germany has issued a preliminary ruling in a patent case between Apple and Motorola Mobility which could impact the availability of the iPhone and iPad in the country.
Intellectual property and patent case expert Florian Mueller posted a German-language PDF document from a Mannheim court which outlines a default judgement in favour of Motorola Mobility and its claims that Apple infringes on a pair of its mobile device patents.
According to Mueller, the judgement could immediately allow Motorola to take action preventing the sale of infringing products. The patents are believed to cover the full range of Apple’s mobile lineup, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
“By simply letting the plaintiff win a default judgment, a defendant preserves his ability to present all of his arguments in the appeal,” Mueller wrote in a post to his FOSS Patents blog.
“But this has cost implications (which are less than secondary in this case given what’s at stake) and comes with the risk of a default judgment that is preliminarily enforceable.”
Mueller said that the Motorola ruling may not fully block the availability of Apple products in the country. In addition to legal appeals from the company, Mueller said Apple resellers could obtain products from other countries as one possible workaround.
Florian Mueller received the following statement from Motorola Mobility via e-mail which seem to indicate that they are looking for an amicable end to the feud, but a victory would give Motorola significant leverage in negotiations.
As media continue to converge and mobility, 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, so while 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 Apple and Motorola are engaged in a series of legal battles around the world.
Source: Foss patent via city-Bremerhaven Via NetbookNews.de Via V3.uk.com
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