Motorola Mobility fails to make patent case against Apple in German court

From InfoWorld: A German court has thrown out a Motorola Mobility patent lawsuit against Apple, breaking a recent run of courtroom successes for the company.

The patent enforcement action was dismissed, a spokesman for the District Court in Mannheim, Germany, said Friday.

While this ruling went in Apple's favor, the company's products are the subject of a number of other patent infringement lawsuits in Germany, brought by Motorola Mobility and also Samsung Electronics. Last week, Motorola Mobility succeeded briefly in blocking sales of Apple's mobile phones in Germany, winning an injunction to enforce an earlier patent ruling that Apple had infringed a patent essential to the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) mobile communications standard.

Such injunctions have themselves become a bone of contention between Apple and other patent holders. Apple feels that they should not be used in relation to standards-essential patents. But injunctions are considered fair game by rival mobile OS developer Google, which could soon become the owner of Motorola Mobility if antitrust authorities approve the deal.

In Friday's judgment, the court ruled that Motorola Mobility failed to present conclusive evidence that Apple had infringed its patent, according to patent analyst Florian Mueller.

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