Apple has asked the European Commission to intervene in its patent battle with Motorola Mobility , fit in to a filing with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) made by Motorola Mobility recent Friday .
In its annual paper , Motorola Mobility said that Apple has file a ill with the Commission , the European Union ’s executive and regulatory body , regarding Motorola Mobility ’s attempts to implement patents related to various industry standards . In difference of opinion are so - called all-important patents hold by secret companies but used in industry standards and , in accord with outside banner and regulative bodies , license under fair , sensible , and non - discriminatory ( FRAND ) terms .
“ On February 17 , 2012 , the Company received a letter from the European Commission , Competition Directorate - General , ( the ‘ Commission ’ ) apprise it that the Commission has get a complaint against Motorola Mobility , Inc. ( ‘ MMI ’ ) by Apple , Inc. ( ‘ Apple ’ ) regarding the enforcement of MMI ’s standard - essential patents against Apple allegedly in rift of MMI ’s FRAND commitments , ” Motorola Mobility say in its one-year report . “ Apple ’s ailment assay the Commission ’s intervention with respect to touchstone - essential patents . ”
Apple officials were not immediately available for scuttlebutt .
“ Motorola Mobility has had a long - standing practice of licensing our patents under Fair Reasonable Non - Discriminating ( FRAND ) term and we offered those to Apple , ” according to a instruction from Motorola Mobility .
The Apple complaint turns the warmth up on a conflict that has been boiling for a while , and which has gained significance since Google of late bring home the bacon E.U. and U.S. approval to develop Motorola Mobility for its portfolio of patent .
Apple in the first place this month remove some products from its online store in Germany after getting attain with a court injunction by the Mannheim Regional Court , which had predominate that some iPhone and iPad equipment conflict a Motorola patent . Shortly afterward , the cease and desist order was suspended , freeing Apple to sell the Cartesian product again .
The suspend injunction was one of a series of effectual battles in Europe and the U.S. involving letters patent infringement . Motorola Mobility also charge the iPhone maker of infringing its engineering patents in a Florida motor inn last month .
On its part , Apple nock a victory Thursdayas the district court in Munich on granted an enjoinment against some of Motorola ’s smartphones for alleged intrusion of an Apple letters patent for unlocking touchscreens .
underlie several of the patent display case is a dissonance over how companies should sell with essential patents . When letters patent - infringement talks over FRAND terms conk out , Google has pressed for continued use of injunction to block the sale of allegedly infringing products . Apple meanwhile , in a November letter to ETSI , ( European Telecommunications Standards Institute ) , stressed the need for body with the licensing of of the essence letters patent , and suggested terms that include the hope to not block the sale of products .
As the number of letters patent dispute cases proliferate , the European Commission is likely intervene , concord to Florian Mueller , a patent of invention psychoanalyst . “ I am sure that Brussels will take the metre it require to interpret the egress , but time is of the centre because of what ’s already going on , so I think a decision on whether or not MMI will be officially investigated is only a few month away,”Mueller say in his blog . “ I opine formal investigations are reasonably probable here . ”
