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US Judge Rules Against German Microsoft Injunction
angry tapir writes "In an unusual case, a U.S. judge has ruled that Motorola cannot enforce an injunction that would prevent Microsoft from selling Windows products in Germany, should a German court issue such an injunction next week. Microsoft asked the judge for the ruling in anticipation of an injunction that a German court is expected to issue related to a patent infringement suit that Motorola filed against Microsoft in Germany. The suit centers primarily on Motorola licenses that have been declared essential to the H.264 video standard. The German injunction is expected on April 17."
IANAL, so can someone explain to me why a US court thinks it has any effect in Germany? Or is this some kind of 'threat'/'international business' thing that has some legal basis for multinational companies?
Oh right, forgot about that.
The Judge ruled that: Motorola shall not enforce an injunction in Germany.
The Judge did not rule that: a German court can't enforce an injunction in Germany.
Jurisdictions remain intact.
It's a fact that Germany will never be Germany without the United States of America
Without the United States of America, Germany will be known as "Deutschland"
You certainly don't want that, do you?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
They should issue the injunction anyway, then Motorola should get the ruling in the US overturned, then they should go against Microsoft for damages for the delayed injunction in Germany.
Microsoft, of course, wants far far more per handset in patent licenses for patents it won't even list in open documents they're so weak. So its a little rich to complain about the license fee Motorola wants from them for H264.
So this is very typically Microsoft, it cannot win the case in Germany apparently, so it stirs up anti-German sentiment in the USA and tries to divide the US and Germany to its own advantage. Nasty, very nasty.
if the court judgement comes, would motorola need to enforce it? wouldn't it be the court that enforces it.
but the us judge made this decision just because if he didn't, he would have been unnecessary and would have to judge some real cases that matter but where there isn't as much money involved.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
America just dropped further on the anti-corruption list. Looks like another judge has been bought by MS. As I recall earlier, a fool was gripping that MS is unfairly singled out by media. Yet, here is MS getting an American judge to prevent Motorola from exercising their legal rights in Germany. Sick and Twisted that judges can be bought so easily.
RootStrikers.org
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm sure that Apple must be keeping a close eye on this case, given their own worldwide legal shenanigans.
AFAIK USA is the only country that treats companies as real people. In Turkey and again AFAIK our regulations are compatible with EU rules, if a company neglects to follow up such a rule, responsible managers of said company will face charges of criminal misconduct due to, either neglecting duty for protecting shareholders, or even tax evasion, as such lack of activity would cause a loss to the company hence loss of taxes of government, depending on the mood of prosecutors at the day they were given the file...
I... AGREE?! I never thought i'd ever have to defend Microsoft, but uh... Motorola is being stupid with its patents. Not that Microsoft isn't guilty of the same stuff, but uh.. yeah. Not sure about the judicial system over here trying to influence the outcomes of others though. I mean, while i can again agree that Motorola should not be allowed to use an injunction like that, i think we should have full faith in the ability of other countries to um... govern themselves.
The US case started before DE case.
Motorlola proposed worldwide 2.25% license fee at the US court (which MS refused ... obviously).
I do not think these are valid. Each country has different laws. There cannot be a common resolution of a dispute pressed by one court over the whole word. In the worst case, (when companies do not come to agreement) they will sue each other in every jurisdiction separately. I think that is OK.
This is absurd!
It starts with a case where someone is sued to using patents that HAVE to be used when you want to implement a standard accordingt to that very standard.
It continues with an US court activly trying to force a company into disrespect of legitimate court verdicts.
And it turns into hybris when that court wants their findings to be respected outside the boundaries of the US.
bickerdyke
One wonders why a USA based company would go all the way over to Germany to sue another USA based company....
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Now that is a more interesting case than Motorola vs. Microsoft, because in this case, the injunction was against people and companies outside the US.
And it seems that the injunction did not stop the sale for long:
The news about the injunction was from 13 Oct 2010, two days later there were news about the sale being complete: http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/liverpool-fc-sold-to-nesv
C - the footgun of programming languages
You do know that Florian Muller is on Microsoft's payroll. Are you as well?
IANAL, so can someone explain to me why a US court thinks it has any effect in Germany? Or is this some kind of 'threat'/'international business' thing that has some legal basis for multinational companies?
From the source article:
The U.S. court should be the one to rule on that issue, Microsoft argued, because Microsoft filed its lawsuit against Motorola over the terms of a licensing deal before Motorola filed its suit in Germany.
So, basically, they are arguing they have jurisdiction because the dispute originated in the US - and it sounds like the US justice system feels that the Motorola suit was more retaliation against Microsoft for bringing up the case than a preplanned and poorly timed execution.
Personally, however, I believe the US would never tolerate another country making the same claim. Instead, the US would claim sovereign rights and not bow to any court, national or international (yes, the US has refused to recognize the proceedings of the International Criminal Court - showing how much it believes in having other powers meddle in its governance). Thus the US should respect the sovereignty of other nations to manage their own legal proceedings since we have no jurisdiction over Germany.
What would happen when Motorola went to German court and obtained similar order on Microsoft, not to enforce order from TFA?
As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
software patents aren't illegal in Europe. It's a bit more complicated, but MPEG-LA lists a lot of German patents.
I'm sitting here, stunned, at having read the words "Microsoft" and "reasonable" in the same sentence.
Life, ultimately, boils down to the Four Fs: Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding, and Mating.
I can't wait to see it, I can't wait to see a seething German judge issuing an arrest warrant for US judge in contempt. Alternatively, and somewhat less hilariously, the German judge might just pass the order banning the sale of Windows phones (I believe) and order the authorities to enforce it, leaving Motorola with clean hands in the US court.
Suppose the judge orders Motorola to enforce the injunction? Florian Müller explanation isn't even credible, the US order directly interferes with the German court.
It is quite simple: If somebody tries to sell these things, they will get impounded and there may be fines for the ones selling them. U.S. law? The Germans could not care less.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Actually, the court cannot enforce anything. It can order the police and/or customs to enforce things, but that is it. Courts have very little direct power in Germany.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Typical MS arrogance. I know german judges, having both worked with them and been to court (usually as the plaintiff) in quite a few business-related cases. The judge in the german case is going to be pissed. MS is either stupid like shit in the "don't piss of the judge" department, or they already see the case in the german court as lost.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
A US Judge telling two US companies what they can do, afaik. Seems legit to me. Just because I take you to another country to beat you with a stick, doesn't mean you can't sue me in US court when we return.
I8-D
How does a US court expect to enforce its decision in Germany?
Are we going to invade Germany on Microsoft's behalf and make them buy Windows at gunpoint? And is that business model patented?
Maybe I can hire them to get a ruling from the same judge that Indian courts can rule whether American courts can or cannot rule what German courts can or cannot rule?
It's a federal crime to go abroad for the purpose of having sex with a minor. One may seem justified and the other not, but the underlying legal principle is the same. You are an American (or American corporation). You are at all times and places subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. You may disagree with that, and often the feds won't push it. However, if you come back into contact with the federal government having broken federal laws abroad, you better watch yourself.
In Germany the court only does the ruling and deciding. The winning party then has to go to the police and customs and instruct them to execute the given ruling. But going to the police is at the discretion of the winning party.
Pure software patents are illegal in Europe and Germany, yes, that is totally correct. The Problem is that patents that relate to hardware and information systems are absolutely patentable. And since you can implement H.264 in hardware and probably the patent is about this, the patent is valid. This is especially thorny since software emulations of hardware are also infringing on the given patent.
Actually, the US court decision does not interfere with the German court, but with what Motorola does on German soil. Since the act of enforcing the injunction is separate, as I mention elsewhere. But it renders that decision meaningless and the end result is the same. It is still not what I would expect a US court to do...
This is a civil matter, as a result Motorola has to act for the injunction to become effective. There are many cases where that ruling basically brought the parties back to the table, though on less favorable terms and the injunction was never enforced. I doubt that court procedures will be changed just because some US judge does nonsense.
How exactly is Google in on this?
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
This case centers on Motorola's demands for two FRAND (Free, Reasonable And Non Discriminatory) patents on H.264. The idea behind FRAND is that it allows the use of patent-encumbered technology in public standards, without the fear of lawsuits hobbling creative and technological advancement. FRAND has been championed within standards bodies by companies like Microsoft and Motorola, who promised that FRAND would be just as easy as disallowing patent-encumbered technology. H.264 has been one of the seminal cases of FRAND, with an enormous showdown at W3C between all the heavyweights. Theora was dropped because they promised this would not happen with H.264.
This case makes it very clear that FRAND is a farce. You can have open technology, which anyone can use, or you can have encumbered technology. Pretending that encumbered technology can work like open technology because a corporation makes a vague promise to be "reasonable" to its competitors is absolute folly.
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Google owns Motorola Mobility.
I can't wait to see it, I can't wait to see a seething German judge issuing an arrest warrant for US judge in contempt.
Other than reducing the vacation travel options for the US judge, this would have no effect.
Alternatively, and somewhat less hilariously, the German judge might just pass the order banning the sale of Windows phones (I believe) and order the authorities to enforce it, leaving Motorola with clean hands in the US court.
At which point MS will complain that they're losing $100M/yr in Germany, and the US court will tell Motorola to write them a check for 3x that.
The only way that the German court has any real power here is if the business done by MS in Germany is much larger than the business done by Motorola in the US. Otherwise any penalty they impose will just be undone on the other side of the ocean.
Motorola Mobility is now a subsidiary of Google.
According to this article, the actions started in Nov 2010, before the acquisition, but it's now a patent war case of Google vs Microsoft.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
I believe you're thinking of WWI. Your argument, while still flawed and simplistic, might have held more weight there. But "WWII" didn't truly become a *world war* until the late 1930s.
WWII became a world war in 1939. USA joined late 1941, > 24 months later. That's pretty fucking late to the party
You really need to read a little more history. You are confusing war on paper with war on a battlefield. The *British* coined the phrase "The Phoney War" for the period up to mid 1940. France and Britain declared war when Poland was invaded in the fall of 1939 but did not engage in any major military efforts. Then Germany invaded France in mid 1940 and the real fighting began in the west.
... don't try to wave away the fact that the only wars the US didn't engage with eagerness were the ones that mattered most in the past century.
Initially it looked like WW2 would not occur. The British and French had appeased Germany on Czechoslovakia. They abandoned Poland despite treaties and promises to defend her. In that Phoney War period it looked like Britain and France were going to appease Germany on Poland just like they did on Czechoslovakia. France and Britain were lined up and in a position to invade Germany along the French border but they apparently were not doing anything more than minor skirmishes, apparently just bluffing. It was not until the German invasion of France that people in America thought this war was going to be real.
Look, yes, we were a little late to WWI and WWII, and we're sorry for that. Hell, maybe if we had been there at the beginning, those two conflicts wouldn't have gotten all blown out of proportion like they did. But see, we've strived real hard to be first to every other war since then. And none of them have escalated into a "world war", have they? By my reckoning, we've successfully prevented something like 7 or 8 world wars since then. Where's our recognition for that, huh? It's a thankless job, I tell ya.
I realize you are joking but there is actually some truth in what you say. After WW2 that generation was of the opinion that little dictators should be squashed before they had the chance to become big regional problems. That generation looked back to the early days of Germany violating the treaty ending WW1, when Britain and France considered intervening militarily, but decided not to because they expected to lose 5,000 men. That generation realized what a tragic mistake it was not to intervene.
... maybe even a world war.
That is why that generation was fine with the 1991 gulf war against Iraq. That generation was of the opinion that if they intervened and kept various dictators from becoming larger regional power, and they were wrong 99 out of 100 times, it would still be worth it for the 1 in 100 that would go on to create a major regional war
Motorola argued strongly against the U.S. injunction. "You are being asked to interfere with a German court," Jenner said. "It's an intolerable intrusion on another country's prerogative."
not really, it's just an extreme example of typical US bigotry. there's no intrusion whatsover possible by any american judge (only big corporations, fbi, marines and navy seals can pull that off)
In the end, the judge seems to have decided that preserving his power to rule on this issue was too important.
this makes sense, every judge has the right (and obligation) to preserve his power to rule. even if it happens to be zero it's his rightful zero power and he should stand on it. in fact, I find such a line of thought pretty amusing, and surprising from a north american, i would have rather expected this from, say, a norwegian judge.
An American court judge's ruling means precisely DICK in Germany...
Some people in the USA seem to think that the rest of the world owes them eternal hosannas for something that their great grandparents did.,BR> Some people outside the USA think that just as you can no longer blame Germans for what was done there up to 1945, you do not thank people in the US for what their country reluctantly got into in 1941.
The USA has no jurisdiction anywhere outside its own territories. Having people who have broken no laws in their own countries (which are supposed to be allies not vassals) forcibly taken to the USA for show trials should be compared to that misused concept of "terrorism".
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Just to remind you: Still have to pay the inventor in order t use a FRAND patent. And since Microsoft and Apple have added little to the patent pool they are expected to pay more then others.