A Google U-turn
This has to be the most shocking news of the day, (if not the week and month). Apparently Google’s subsidiary, Motorola Mobility has completely withdrawn their ITC patent complaint against Apple. In case you missed it previously, Motorola filed a complaint with the ITC attempting to ban sales of a multitude of Apple’s products from sale in the United States. Supposedly, these products infringe upon seven patents held by Motorola. The case was under investigation for these claims since August 17th.
For whatever reason, Motorola asked the ITC to "terminate all claims in this investigation without prejudice," and adding that "there are no agreements between Motorola and Apple, written or oral, express or implied, concerning the subject matter of this investigation."
Right now, there is nothing but speculation as to why this might have been the case. Currently, there are only two theories that we have heard as to why this might have happened. One is that Motorola themselves somehow determined the patents were not actually being infringed and decided to withdraw the case before things made them look bad. The other is a much happier outcome, and that is maybe, just maybe, Google and Apple finally worked out some sort of licensing agreement and can begin to end the ridiculous patent wars. Wouldn’t that be great?
Posted by: Gareth
No Trackbacks.