Good news for the Google-owned Motorola coming this afternoon from Wisconsin. Right before trial was set to begin today, Federal Judge Barbara Crabb has just thrown out Apple’s case against Motorola dealing with Moto’s “unfair” royalty rates on their standards-based patents (covering UMTS, GPRS, GSM, and 802.11 wireless standards).
The judge gave both parties until today to explain whether a court determined FRAND rate would even solve the patent dispute at hand. Apple said it would only help resolve this case by figuring out if Motorola’s royalty rates were fair. If not deemed fair, then they could argue later over what a final going rate should be.
Apple’s response wasn’t good enough for the judge and the entire case was dismissed with prejudice. Judge Crabb later said:
“Apple’s response was not satisfactory and did not assuage my concerns about determining a FRAND rate that may be used solely as a negotiating tool between the parties.”
Motorola was pleased with the decision, issuing their own statement:
“Motorola has long offered licensing to our extensive patent portfolio at a reasonable and non-discriminatory rate in line with industry standards. We remain interested in reaching an agreement with Apple.”
Apple originally told the court they didn’t want to pay a penny more than $1 per iPhone to license Moto’s FRAND patents and have yet to issue a statement on the ruling. Guess there’s always the possibility of an appeal or far (FAR) less likely settlement. This isn’t over, folks.
[via Reuters | FOSSPatents]
Source : androidtabletblog[dot]com
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