Motorola Mobility scored a refreshing victory against Microsoft in its ongoing patent battle in Germany. The German courts ruled that the Google owned company did not infringe on a Microsoft patent that deals with allowing software applications to work with a phone’s radio antennas across a range of different handsets, without having to build a custom means of doing so for each person device. The reason this is refreshing is because Motorola had already lost to three other patents, which caused injunctions to be placed on some of its handsets.
Unfortunately, Motorola still has more challenges to come. Mr. Softy has gained a victory in a patent that could disrupt an essential core feature of Android, for “a method and system for receiving user input data into a computer system having a graphical windowing environment.” And Microsoft believes this is something Google can’t avoid with a design change.
It’s annoying that companies like Microsoft and Apple rather sue, instead of compete against its rivals. Striking a license deal not only makes sense, but it helps consumers when it comes to having more choice. Nevertheless, it’s clear that Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility is not protecting it in all patent suits. With three of Microsoft’s patents already considered infringed upon, it’s going to be an uphill battle for Google to avoid paying a small fee per handset like most of the other major Android OEMs. Hopefully, Google has something in its trove of patents it could use as offense against its rivals.
[via TechCrunch]