Motorola Mobility has won an injunction against Microsoft in Germany prohibiting the sale of products in the country including Windows 7 and the Xbox 360. The injunction is the latest punch thrown in a bitter patent lawsuit between Motorola and Microsoft
A court in Mannheim, Germany ruled today that several Microsoft products including Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, infringe on various Motorola patents relating to video compression technology, and that Microsoft must remove those items from German stores. At issue in the German ruling are two Motorola patents for H.264 video playback.
You may recall that a U.S. court ordered Motorola in April not to enforce the German ban - if it was granted to them by a German court - pending a ruling on a related patent dispute in Seattle. Because of the U.S. ruling Microsoft says that the chances of Motorola trying to enforce the German ban are somewhere between slim and none. Microsoft was also well prepared for the German ruling, having moved its European distribution operations from Germany to the Netherlands earlier in the year.
The next round will take place on May 7 when the U.S. District court in Seattle sorts through the patent dispute.
http://gamepolitics.com/2012/05/02/xbox-360-windows-7-banned-germanyWow.. wasn't it Motorola that also spanked Apple earlier this year?
