>Apple suffered early losses in accordance with the patent against Motorola. An administrative law judge (ALJ) with the International Trade Commission (ITC) issued the first decision on Friday, said Motorola did not contradict the three patents Apple’s smartphone. The decision signals a potential problem for Apple, although it still faces approval from a panel of six ITC.
Apple and Motorola has been involved in a series of lawsuits in both federal court and the ITC since 2010, when Motorola first accused Apple of violating patents covering a wide range of 3G, GPRS, and 802.11 technologies, antenna design, proximity sensing, the device synchronization, to name a few. As typical for patent disputes, Apple promptly responded with countersuits own, claiming that Motorola’s Android-based smartphones infringement on Apple’s own intellectual property.
Friday the verdict is not the last word of the ITC, and the panel does not always rule the same way with the ALJ. However, the decision is an indicator that fight against Android Apple IP may not be as easy as former Apple CEO Steve Jobs may expect when he said he hopes to “go thermonuclear war” against the platform. Although Apple has not commented publicly on the initial ITC ruling, Motorola quickly send a statement win to win early.
“We are pleased with the [Friday] good results for Motorola Mobility,” said Motorola Mobility Offers general counsel Scott in a statement. “Motorola Mobility has worked hard over the years to develop technology and build a portfolio of industry-leading intellectual property which we are proud to utilize a broad portfolio and deep to make innovations that distinguish developing user experience ..”
This is the second setback Apple recently faced when it comes to mobile and Motorola’s patent-the first came in December when a German court issued an order against Apple over one of Motorola’s cellular data transmission patent. Apple did, however, recently won a ruling by another ITC Android smartphone maker, HTC, the manufacturer faces a potential ban on the import of devices based on Android devices starting in April this year. However, HTC claims it already knows how to remove the offending feature on the device, so it is unlikely that the actual HTC smartphone will be banned from importation into the United States anytime soon.
