Apple wins patent suit against Motorola in Germany

A regional court in Germany has ruled that Motorola's implementation of its "swipe to unlock" infringes on a patent owned by Apple, although how one can patent swiping on a touch screen beggars belief. Still, the Munich court has sided with Apple and ordered a permanent injunction against certain 'infringing' Motorola devices. Motorola has announced its intention to appeal and while Apple can enforce the injunction virtually immediately, it must put up a bond to do so, with the risk that should Motorola prevail on appeal, the bond would be paid to Motorola in compensation for loss of sales. However, such a bond would be trifling for Apple, considering its US$100 billion cash reserves.

Should Motorola Mobility fail in their appeal, their simplest recourse will be to modify the swipe action in a manner similar to the Asus Transformer Prime which uses an elegant lock icon within a subtle circle to execute the unlock action, something very similar to the Motorola Xoom unlock which was excluded from Apple's victory by the court. It is therefore likely that despite the win, Apple will gain little since Motorola Mobility have announced their intention to modify their phones and tablets in just such a manner, depending on the outcome of the appeal.

The real significance of this win is that Apple is claiming the same against Samsung in another German court and will continue its crusade against any Android vendor operating in Germany, attempting to ban sales of any device running Android from that country, and eventually it hopes, the whole EU. Regardless of these legal maneuverings, there appears to be more nuisance value rather than a real threat to Motorola's continued presence in the German and EU markets.

Another factor that may yet impact the outcome of this line of litigation is that there is currently a legal challenge to the validity of Apple's patent. Until that is resolved in favour of either party, any decision that is given may be rendered moot. However, the German court's decision not to stay the proceedings may hint at their belief that the Apple patent is valid.

This would be at odds with a recent decision by The Hague, however, Samsung having prevailed in that instance. There, the judge decided that prior art invalidated Apple's claim to the patent and refused Apple a preliminary injunction against the Korean company. That being the case, and assuming the likelihood of Samsung winning in the Netherlands, even if Apple won on appeal, the chances of the decision being replicated outside of Germany would be very small.

In a sense, Apple's increasing propensity to increase the number and jurisdictions of its patent litigation smacks of desperation, giving the impression of the Cupertino tech gorilla throwing more and more claims at the wall in the hope that some might stick.

Source: BBC