Not all injunctions can be enforced and those involved
in patent disputes should be warned.
On Friday, a U.S. court for appeals turned down a
request by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Motorola Mobility to enforce a patent
injunction on traditional rival Microsoft that it had obtained in Germany.
The injunction "would have barred Microsoft from
"offering, marketing, using or importing or possessing" in Germany
some products including the Xbox 360 and certain Windows software,"
Reuters reported on the ruling.
Motorola had filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in
Germany, after the Redmond-based software giant had sued the Google unit in
2010 in the United States, alleging that the company was asking for too much in
royalties for the use of its patents in its gaming console XBox 360 and other
products and for breach of contract.
It got a German court in Mannheim to issue a sales
injunction on Microsoft's products, related to the patents under dispute.
Microsoft then got U.S. District judge James Robart to
put the German order on hold.
"In its ruling on Friday, a three-judge 9th
Circuit unanimously upheld Robart's order. Since Microsoft had already brought
a lawsuit against Motorola for breach of contract in the United States, U.S.
courts have the power to put the German injunction on hold, the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals said," according to the Reuters report.
"At bottom, this case is a private dispute under
Washington state contract law between two U.S. corporations," the court
ruled.
There are investigations against Motorola to find out
whether it was over-charging Microsoft and Apple for the use of its patents on
their products.
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