A shallow victory for Motorola, as the Mannheim district court in Germany made a default judgement in favour of Motorola in regards to Apple patent infringement of two of the company's wireless IPs, effectively banning Apple Inc. from selling violating devices within Germany.
A very shallow victory indeed however, as the default judgement was rendered as Apple failed to show up in court. This stems from the fact that though Apple may have been banned from infringing device sales, this has no impact on the local subsidiary, Apple Germany, that actually sells the devices.
It has always baffled this writer why a ruling on a parent company should have no effect on its subsidiary, however things are as they are and Motorola must continue to push through its legal case against Apple Germany to have any real impact on Apple products. Having said, both companies took the time to issue official statements:
Apple:
This is a procedural issue that has nothing to do with the merits of the case. This does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time.
Motorola:
As media and mobility continue to converge, Motorola Mobility's patented technologies are increasingly important for innovation within the wireless and communications industries, for which Motorola Mobility has developed an industry leading intellectual property portfolio. We will continue to assert ourselves in the protection of these assets, while also ensuring that our technologies are widely available to end-users. We hope that we are able to resolve this matter, so we can focus on creating great innovations that benefit the industry.
Procedural though it may be, Apple will still be appealing the decision, because inaction may look bad on its record when dealing with further injunction cases.
