| By Maureen O'Gara |
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| October 17, 2012 08:15 AM EDT |
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2,412 |
Motorola Mobility is asking for an en banc rehearing of the Ninth Circuit Court's unanimous decision a couple of weeks ago forbidding it to enforce the German injunctions it got on its H.264 standards-essential claims against Microsoft.
It's a long shot, which is why Google is claiming the Ninth Circuit has exceeded its own precedents.
Ignoring recent FRAND decisions, Motorola says that "By paving a new path favoring issuance of anti-suit injunctions in the important and unsettled area of RAND licensing of standard-essential patents, the panel has invited litigants to bring global licensing disputes in US courts to shut down efforts to enforce foreign standard-essential patents in foreign courts."
Microsoft filed suit after Motorola made global royalty claims.
Motorola claims that "To disallow injunctive relief against a would-be licensee that has yet to negotiate and pay in good faith, as the panel seemingly commends, ‘would be handing the patent owner over to every dishonest licensee for whom there would no longer be any incentive to conduct licensing negotiations.'"
Motorola can't sell its Android products anywhere in Germany because of injunctions got by Microsoft and Apple and Microsoft is promising to sue Google directly so, as FOSS Patents notes, Google is looking for leverage.
See http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/10/googles-motorola-asks-ninth-circuit-for.html.
