A GERMAN court has ruled that Microsoft infringed Motorola Mobility’s patents and ordered Microsoft to remove its popular Xbox 360 gaming consoles and Windows 7 operating system software from the German market.
However, Microsoft said that the ruling did not mean that its products would be taken off retailers’ shelves because a US district court in Seattle has granted Microsoft a preliminary injunction against Motorola to prevent it from enforcing any German court order.
“Motorola is prohibited from acting on today’s decision, and our business in Germany will continue as usual while we appeal this decision and pursue the fundamental issue of Motorola’s broken promise,” Microsoft said.
Judge Holger Kircher said Microsoft breached an agreement with Motorola Mobility, which is in the process of being bought by Google, in using certain video-compression software in products including Windows 7 and Xbox.
But following complaints by Microsoft and Apple the EU competition authorities have opened two investigations into whether Motorola has been over-charging for the use of its patents.
Technology companies have invested billions of dollars in buying up patent portfolios that they can use defensively or offensively against rivals. Yesterday’s ruling is expected to have little immediate impact for Microsoft’s European distribution operations as it has already moved its regional software distribution centre to the Netherlands from Germany in anticipation of adverse judgments in the patent trial.
Separately Europe’s top court has ruled functions performed by computer programmes are not entitled to copyright protection, in a verdict that will allow developers greater freedom to produce competing and complementary software. The Court of Justice of the EU was ruling on a case in which US company SAS Institute accused British rival World Programming of infringing its copyrights by copying its programmes.
The court disagreed with SAS’s arguments, saying EU law provides copyright protection to the source code and object code of computer programmes but not for ideas or principles underlying the software.
