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German Court Grants Motorola Xbox and Windows 7 Sales Ban

Posted by Unknown on from the google-subsidiaries-may-do-infinte-evil dept.

First time accepted submitter Celexi writes "In a surprising move, Motorola Mobility (which is to be taken over by Google), has won an injunction preventing the distribution of Windows 7 and the Xbox in Germany until Microsoft starts paying royalty fees for the patents Microsoft is said to be infringing (two patents used to display H.264 video). The ruling is suspended as of now because of a restraining order, the effect in the rest of the EU and U.S. if the ban is enforced if the restraining order is lifted, is unclear." This could go into effect as soon as May 7th, pending the result of the next U.S. case hearing.

3 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Motorola is not Google yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Motorola / Google deal hasn't closed yet, until it does Google can not control legally Motorola. Let Google take control of the company before you start blaming them. Motorola is struggling tech company with a lot IP so it really shouldn't surprise anyone that it turned to IP litigation just like so many other tech companies on their way out. Until Google takes over this is Motorola hedging in case the merger falls through.

  2. Retalliation by Bert64 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Aren't Motorola acting in self defense? As i understand it, MS has been trying to shake down android handset manufacturers for a while and motorola are one of the few that refused to give in to their demands.

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  3. Re:Google has lowered itself to patent proxy wars by JimCanuck · · Score: 4, Informative


    Clean room software engineering is supposed to be only knowing the inputs and outputs of the piece of software your trying to implement, without any inside knowledge of the source code.

    This is how companies like Award, Phoenix and Compaq got away with cloning the IBM BIOS on the original IBM PC's as they used programmers and engineers who had never seen a copy of the code itself, and instead only provided them with "Input Command X results in Y if condition Z is met" type of documentation.

    Reading the code and then rewriting it to do the exact same thing has been a violation of software copyrights since the 1980's when many companies tried to do that to the IBM BIOS, the legality of doing what your implying in court cases has already been shown to be illegal for the last 3 decades or so.