Motorola scored a legal victory this week against Apple, with a judge finding that certain Apple products infringe on Motorola patents for data packet transfer technology (GPRS).
A court in Manheim, Germany granted Motorola the right to enforce a preliminary injunction against gadgets like the iPad and iPhone, meaning the popular devices could conceivably be pulled from German shelves. To do that, however, Motorola has to post a $134 million bond—or insurance policy of sorts. If Apple wins the final ruling, it gets that $134 million for the losses suffered during the injunction.
As a result, Motorola has to decide if it wants to risk losing $134 million on the case. Apple, however, told Dow Jones that it will appeal the ruling, which could postpone any sort of product ban.
"Today's decision validates Motorola Mobility's efforts to enforce its patents against Apple's infringement," Scott Offer, senior vice president and general counsel of Motorola Mobility, said in a statement. "Motorola Mobility has worked hard over the years to build an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio that is respected by the telecommunications industry, and we are proud to leverage this portfolio to create differentiated innovations that enhance the user experience."
Offer said Motorola will "continue to take all necessary steps to protect our intellectual property."
As patent blogger Florian Mueller noted, Apple could avoid the issue by removing the infringing feature from its devices, but "it remains to be seen whether this is a commercially viable option for Apple," Mueller wrote. "This feature could be somewhat fundamental to wireless data transfers in general."
Apple could also try to acquire a license for the technology from Motorola. In its statement, Motorola said it has been trying to nail down an Apple license since 2007, "and will continue our efforts to resolve our global patent dispute as soon as practicable."
Mueller also said that Apple originally wanted Motorola to pay a $2.7 billion bond, but the court settled on the $134 million amount.
A copy of the ruling (in German), as well as more details about the technical aspects of the case are available on Mueller's blog.
Today's ruling, Mueller said, is "the first substantive ruling in this dispute." It comes about a month after a default judgment was handed down against Apple by the same court. At the time, Apple said it was "a procedural issue and ... does not affect our ability to do business or sell products in Germany at this time," but a hearing on that issue will be heard on Feb. 3, Mueller said in a separate blog post.
Apple is also battling Samsung on several patent issues, but Samsung has thus far been unsuccessful in getting the iPhone 4S banned in Italy and France. Last week, however, a U.S. judge denied Apple's request for a preliminary injunction against four Samsung products, and an Australian judge overturned a ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1.