The patent battles between Google-owned Motorola and Microsoft continue in Germany. Today, Judge Andreas Voss ruled that Motorola's Android-based smartphones are in violation of a File Allocation Table (FAT) patent owned by Microsoft.
As reported by FOSS Patents, the decision means that all Motorola Android smartphones can now be banned for sale in Germany, although Microsoft must pay a 10 million euro bond for the injunction to be enforced. So far, there's been no comment from Motorola or Google about this decision, but you can bet that they will try to appeal Judge Voss' ruling.
Motorola is the only large vendor of Android-based smartphones that has yet to sign on the dotted line with Microsoft to license its patents. Most of the other companies that made Android devices, along with those that use Google's Chrome OS, have inked patent deals with Microsoft, most of which entail the companies giving Microsoft a cut of each sale of their Android devices.
Earlier this week, 18 of Motorola's Android products were banned from being shipped into the US due to an earlier ITC ruling that the devices uses unlicensed ActiveSync patents owned by Microsoft. Motorola and Google said at the time they were going to find a way to get around the ban but so far it has not offered any solutions to the issue.
Source: FOSS Patents
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