US Court Says Motorola Can't Enforce Microsoft Injunction In Germany

First time accepted submitter Chris453 writes "A U.S. appeals court on Friday ruled that Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit cannot enforce a patent injunction that it obtained against Microsoft Corp in Germany, diminishing Google's leverage in the ongoing smartphone patent wars. Motorola won an injunction against Microsoft in May using their H.264 patents. Apparently the U.S. federal justices in California have worldwide jurisdiction over all court cases — Who knew? Maybe that is why Apple keeps winning lawsuits..."

Re:How does this work?

[larry bagina]

You could try reading the article.

"At bottom, this case is a private dispute under Washington state contract law between two U.S. corporations," the court ruled.

Re:How does this work?

[Fjandr]

A US court can, however, tell a US corporation whether it can seek to enforce an injunction granted in another jurisdiction.

The court isn't telling Germany to do or not do anything. They're telling Motorola that they cannot seek to have the injunction enforced because of an ongoing lawsuit over whether Motorola acted improperly regarding the fees they requested for the standards-essential patent(s) at issue.

Re:Dangerous precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

The US, UK and now many other common law countries actually do claim universal jurisdiction for a few select laws, most notably extraterritorial child sex tourism laws. You can murder someone in another country and you have to be prosecuted there, you can't be extradited home to be tried somewhere you didn't commit the crime. But so much as touch a child's genitals and you can be tried there *or* extradited home to face a court under extraterritorial laws, whatever the officials feel like doing on both sides.

Yet Another Misleading Story

[ReallyEvilCanine]

The Appeals Court turned down the preliminary because the full case is still active in District. The German case will almost certainly influence the finding but the case is still on-going. Appeals Courts are for after a decision has been reached by the lower court.

Re:Dangerous precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

By this court's reasoning, if a family went on vacation in Germany for Octoberfest and dad gave his 14 yo son a beer to drink, then it's a Washington State parent giving alcohol to an underage Washington State child, and he would be subject to fines and jail under the drinking laws of Washington State.

No. It's more like father and mother get divorced in Washington state. As part of the custody agreement, the father agrees not to provide beer to their son. The father and son go to Germany and the father buys the son a beer. The Washington state divorce court declares him in violation of the Washington state custody agreement. It's not illegal; it's just a contract violation.

If Google and Microsoft have a contract in Washington state, then US courts will have jurisdiction over that contract. This isn't overturning the German decision. The German decision presumably says that Motorola Mobility has a patent and that Microsoft must license the patent from them. The US court decision apparently says that Google (which owns Motorola Mobility) has a licensing agreement with Microsoft. As a result of that licensing agreement, Microsoft has licensed this patent from Google. This is in fact a US contract dispute and should be decided under US law.

The confusing part here seems to be that there are two separate issues. One should be decided under German law. That's whether the patent applies and requires licensing. The other should be decided under US law. That's the question of whether the licensing agreement applies. Germany decided that the patent does apply and the US decided that the licensing agreement applies. This is confusing, but there's nothing wrong with it. Absent an international patent system, this is the way that these things will work.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:How does this work?

[Compaqt]

They're not doing an end run around the court. If, according to German law, Motorola is in the right, then they have the right to enjoin (in Germany).

  Many companies have to do a lot of things in foreign jurisdictions because of European (or other) laws. It's out of line for a US court to say that they can't do so because a case in a US court.

Re:Fairness - from the article

[starless]

WTF? Go cry me a river. Since when does a company ( that isn't a monopoly ) have to be fair and charge 'reasonable' prices? Especially to the competition...

Here's one example:
Reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (RAND), also known as fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND), are a licensing obligation that is often required by standard-setting organizations for members that participate in the standard-setting process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing [wikipedia.org]