Motorola Android devices banned in Germany after losing patent case against Microsoft
Yet another day, yet another bit of patent-related lawsuit news. And, unfortunately, this time an Android OEM is on the wrong side of the judgement. A Mannheim court has ruled that Motorola infringes on Microsoft’s patents on FAT technology. The court has granted Microsoft’s request for a ban on all relevant devices, as long as they pay a 10 million Euro bond (peanuts for the company, unfortunately).
Motorola will be required to pay damages which haven’t been determined as yet. Microsoft, as expected, are gloating in the wake of the recovery. They had already won an injunction request in late May, and believe this bolsters their position.
“We already have an injunction against Motorola products in Germany as a result of a ruling on May 24, and today’s ruling serves to strengthen this injunction. In the long term, if Motorola wishes to sell products on the German market, it must either take a license or stop using the technology covered by our patents including the ones at issue in this week’s decisions.”
-David Howard, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel and Corporate VP
There’s really not much to say in this. I can’t pretend that the justice system around the world is going to change for the better. There have been some signs for the better, but nothing’s going to change until there’s a complete revamp of the system. Until then, there’s really no point expecting Microsoft to have a change of heart and decide to compete on quality. They know they can’t, and they know that the only thing in their interest is to either make a ton of money from licenses, or put such a high price on manufacturing Android handsets that OEMs decide not to.
[via Talk Android]