Motorola is experiencing a bitter-sweet time at the moment. In a it’s battle with Apple, Motorola has been successful in thawing Apple’s efforts to stop the sale of it’s Motorola’s Xoom tablets in Germany. Dow Jones is reporting that, “a German court Tuesday ruled the Xoom tablet, made by Google Inc.’s Motorola Mobility, doesn’t infringe on the design of Apple Inc.’s iPad, but it rejected a claim made by Motorola that the iPad’s design patent is invalid. Apple initially sued Motorola for allegedly infringing three iPad designs with the Xoom. It sought to have the device banned across Europe.” the article went on to state that, “Although the judges ruled Motorola’s Xoom doesn’t infringe on the iPad, the court rejected a counterclaim brought by Motorola alleging the iPad’s design patent is invalid, a spokesman for the court said.”
In other news, Motorola Android devices are officially ban from the United States. This order was handed down by the International Trade Commission earlier this year and comes into effect tomorrow. The order was due to Motorola infringing a Microsoft patent relating to Exchange Active Sync and covers the generation of meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device.
However, it seems that this would not have any material effect on Motorola. Its been reported Motorola Mobility has already made plans to make sure its Android phones and tablets remain available to US consumers. Ars has published a statement from that it will make sure US customers can still buy the devices:
“In view of the ITC exclusion order which becomes effective Wednesday with respect to the single ActiveSync patent upheld in Microsoft’s ITC-744 proceeding, Motorola has taken proactive measures to ensure that our industry leading smartphones remain available to consumers in the US,” Motorola said. “We respect the value of intellectual property and expect other companies to do the same.”
Image Credit: Motorola