Motorola has scored a couple of legal wins against Apple in Germany, one of which has resulted in the removal of several Apple products from the Cupertino firm's German online store. The first decision has forced Apple to yank the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and 3G iPad 2 from its German online store, though the devices are still available through brick and mortar stores, including Apple's own retail locations. The removal of these devices has to do with a Motorola patent that's essential to the GPRS standard and, according to FOSS Patents, is the result of a ruling from back in December that Motorola has seemingly paid €100 million ($133 million) to enforce. Apple has rejected the ruling, arguing that Motorola refused to license the patent in question on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. It's worth noting that the iPhone 4S is not a part of this issue because it utilizes a Qualcomm baseband chip, while the affected devices contain Infineon chips.
The second victory that Motorola has earned centers on iCloud. Specifically, Motorola has won a permanent injunction in Germany against the push email portion of iCloud (and MobileMe before it). Motorola can seek an enforcement of this ban if it pays a €100 million bond, at which point Apple would have to remove push email from iCloud. Users of the service could still pull their email periodically if the push email service is deactivated.
Obviously these are some pretty big wins for Motorola in Germany, and I'm sure that the firm is pretty pleased with the victories that it's been handed. As you would probably expect, Apple is likely to keep fighting these rulings in court. We'll keep an eye out for more information on these legal tiffs as they develop and pass along the details as we get them.
UPDATE: Well, that was quick. Apple has said in a statement to SlashGear that the iPhone and iPad models will soon be returning to its online German store. The company explains that it's appealed the ruling "because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago."
Via The Verge, FOSS Patents (1), (2), SlashGear
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