German Court Grants Motorola Xbox and Windows 7 Sales Ban 163
First time accepted submitter Celexi writes "In a surprising move, Motorola Mobility (which is to be taken over by Google), has won an injunction preventing the distribution of Windows 7 and the Xbox in Germany until Microsoft starts paying royalty fees for the patents Microsoft is said to be infringing (two patents used to display H.264 video). The ruling is suspended as of now because of a restraining order, the effect in the rest of the EU and U.S. if the ban is enforced if the restraining order is lifted, is unclear."
This could go into effect as soon as May 7th, pending the result of the next U.S. case hearing.
Re:Litigate rather than Innovate (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Google has lowered itself to patent proxy wars (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, you really don't put much effort into the pro-MS/anti google posting, huh? Couldn't even hold until the 9th word, doing the first post on the article, *and* couldn't hint about being pro-microsoft about 4 times, right?
using a patent shakedown for extortion with manufacturers is legal and reasonable? Getting a billion a year though would certainly be in the realm of antitrust concerns though. Why do you think MS just settled with B&N for more than B&N was worth? Hint: it wasn't to work with them, and had everything to do with getting B&N to drop the case when they had MS by the balls.
Android vendors were worried google would give preference to Motorola, not "google's plans". As of so far, google is simply carrying on doing what it does day to day and not giving Motorola priority. Had they given Motorola priority you'd hear of every manufacturer aside from Motorola jumping ship faster than you could post an article about it.
I would never use MeeGo or WP7. MeeGo is just not developed enough and WP7 is from a company that violates antitrust on a daily basis (and has been convicted). Why would anyone consider either of those?
Motorola is not Google yet (Score:5, Informative)
The Motorola / Google deal hasn't closed yet, until it does Google can not control legally Motorola. Let Google take control of the company before you start blaming them. Motorola is struggling tech company with a lot IP so it really shouldn't surprise anyone that it turned to IP litigation just like so many other tech companies on their way out. Until Google takes over this is Motorola hedging in case the merger falls through.
Re:Software patents (Score:4, Informative)
Those are not software patents. WiFi and H.264 are not software.
Retalliation (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't Motorola acting in self defense? As i understand it, MS has been trying to shake down android handset manufacturers for a while and motorola are one of the few that refused to give in to their demands.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google has lowered itself to patent proxy wars (Score:5, Informative)
Clean room software engineering is supposed to be only knowing the inputs and outputs of the piece of software your trying to implement, without any inside knowledge of the source code.
This is how companies like Award, Phoenix and Compaq got away with cloning the IBM BIOS on the original IBM PC's as they used programmers and engineers who had never seen a copy of the code itself, and instead only provided them with "Input Command X results in Y if condition Z is met" type of documentation.
Reading the code and then rewriting it to do the exact same thing has been a violation of software copyrights since the 1980's when many companies tried to do that to the IBM BIOS, the legality of doing what your implying in court cases has already been shown to be illegal for the last 3 decades or so.