On Friday, the Mannheim Regional Court of Germany announced that Motorola’s patent lawsuit against Apple had been dismissed. The patent in question was considered essential to the 3G/UMTS wireless telecommunications standard and was used as a “method and system for generating a complex pseudonoise sequence for processing a code division multiple access [CDMA] signal.” Judge Andreas Voss claimed that Motorola failed to present conclusive evidence that Apple infringed upon its patent, however, according to FOSS Patents. Rather than demonstrating Apple’s infringement, Motorola argued that any implementation of 3G/UMTS must then inevitably infringe on the company’s invention. Last December, the manufacturer won an injunction against the Cupertino-based company to ban the sales of iPhones and iPads. The ruling was upheld earlier this month and Apple’s devices were temporarily pulled from shelves, before returning soon after.
Read

Earlier this week, Apple filed a new patent lawsuit against Samsung in San Jose, California according to PaidContent. The complaint covers two patents, the first relating to spelling and autocorrect on its iOS devices, and the second concerning “universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system.” The company revealed it is using two new patents that were granted in December by the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office. The full scope of the case is not yet clear, however, since most of the court documents have not been made public. The Cupertino-based company has been in a constant battle with Samsung and a number of other rival vendors over numerous claims of patent infringement for more than a year.

Read

A German court affirmed a preliminary ruling on Thursday that determined Samsung’s reworked tablet does not look so much like the iPad that it should be banned. The ruling comes as another blow to Apple, which is in the midst of several other lawsuits with rival smartphone and tablet makers over intellectual property. The court said that there were “clear differences” between the Galaxy Tab 10.1N and the iPad, reports Reuters. Apple and Samsung have been tangled in what seems like an endless patent battle in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Japan and Korea. Thus far, courts in several countries including the Netherlands, the United States and Australia have decided to allow Samsung to continue selling its Galaxy smartphones and tablets despite Apple’s continued efforts.

Read

The Munich Regional Court in Germany on Wednesday rejected Apple’s request to ban Samsung’s local subsidiaries from selling the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone and Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet. “Samsung has shown that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of a technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection,” Judge Andreas Mueller said. In September, Samsung’s local retailer arm was banned from selling the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet but the South Korea-based company skirted the ban by released a tweaked device called the Galaxy Tab 10.1N. Apple felt the new tablet  still infringed its patents, however, and asked the court to ban that device as well in November. In late December the presiding judge over the case said Apple was unlikely to win a ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1N and a Dutch court rejected a similar request from Apple on January 24th.

Read

Nokia Siemens Networks recently announced that it will cut as many as 1,200 jobs in Finland and lay off another 2,900 workers in Germany as it begins to restructure the company. Both Nokia and Siemens originally tried to sell the joint venture, which has struggled to report a profit, but gave up those plans this past summer. The move is expected to save €1 billion per year, Reuters said Tuesday. Nokia Siemens Networks is the second larger maker of phone network equipment in the world behind Ericsson, and the joint venture was originally created to help both Siemens and Nokia better compete on a global scale. Nokia Siemens Networks originally said that it plans to cut as many as 17,000 jobs by 2013. 

Read

One week after dismissing Samsung’s first German patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, a German court has also rejected a second suit, reports Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents. Judge Andreas Voss of Germany’s Mannheim Regional Court on Friday addressed Samsung’s argument that certain 3G and UMTS technology in Apple’s iPhones infringes the South Korean company’s patents. The Judge dismissed these claims early Friday morning, however he did not immediately offer an explanation for his decision. Mueller, who attended the pronouncement, says the outcome of Samsung’s suit may be based on the validity of the specific patent in question, in which case Samsung could still prevail in any of its three other 3G/UMTS-related patent complaints it filed against Apple in Mannheim. Samsung originally brought five suits against Apple in Germany, claiming Apple’s mobile devices infringe various 3G/UMTS wireless standards patents it holds.

Read

Apple is warring with Samsung yet again in Germany. The iPhone maker filed another suit against Samsung and this time is arguing that the slide-to-unlock feature on the Galaxy Nexus infringes on an intellectual property right called a “utility model,” patent expert Florian Muller wrote on his website FOSS Patents Friday. Apple reportedly registered the utility model in 2006 and said it wasn’t able to use its utility model against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus in court yet because the phone is so new. Muller said the court will issue a ruling, a stay, or decide to appoint an expert to help the judges decide if Apple’s utility model is “obvious or non-obvious” on March 16th. Earlier on Friday, a German court cleared Apple of an accusation that it infringed on one of seven Samsung patents.

Read

Apple has filed a new complaint targeting 10 Samsung smartphones that allegedly infringe the Cupertino-based company’s design patents. The suit was filed in the Dusseldorf Regional Court, with Apple also filing a separate suit citing five Samsung tablet models. Last month, Samsung introduced the Galaxy Tab 10.1N that featured a new bezel and a slightly modified design. Apple filed a new complaint seeking to ban sales of the tweaked model, but the Dusseldorf court said it was unlikely to grant an injunction against the redesigned tablet. An appeals court also voiced doubts about the reach of Apple’s European Union design right, which was the driving force behind the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction. The new suits aren’t filed under emergency proceedings, allowing Apple a new procedure against both models. A spokesman for Samsung, who declined to be identified, confirmed to Bloomberg that the company had received formal notice of both suits.

Read

Samsung is reportedly planning to launch a tweaked version of its Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus tablet in Germany. The Galaxy Tab 7.0N will likely offer many of the same features of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus but with design changes that could help it avoid litigation from Apple. Apple and Samsung have been butting heads in courtrooms around the globe and Apple last year successfully banned Samsung’s local subsidiaries from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1. As a result, Samsung launched the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, which has also been the subject of ongoing patent litigation. The Galaxy Tab 7.0N is expected to cost about $770 without carrier subsidies.

Read

HTC now has the upper hand in a legal battle with German patent firm IPCom. IPCom won a lawsuit in 2009 related to UMTS technology under which it believed it had the right to ban German retailers from selling HTC smartphones. HTC, however, argued that IPCom’s case was no longer valid and ignored the injunction entirely. As a result, IPCom recently tried to take the law into its own hands by suing more than 100 retailers that continued to sell HTC phones. ”Since this deadline has passed without any of the retailers complying, IPCom has sued them for infringement of patent #100A themselves,” IPCom said, noting that it issued cease and desist letters to each retailer on December 6th asking them to stop selling HTC phones by December 20th. According to Taiwan Economic News, the German Dusseldorf court recently granted HTC an injunction that forces IPCom to stop harassing HTC’s retailers with lawsuits. The injunction should be a relief for HTC, which could have faced fines of up to €250,000 for each handset sold under the terms of the original injunction.

Read

Whether or not competing products do in fact infringe on Apple’s patents, Apple may have another reason to attack its rivals so aggressively in France and Germany: the company is losing ground. New data from Kantar Worldpanel released on Thursday shows that while the launch of the iPhone 4S was a huge hit in the United States and the United Kingdom, smartphone users in key markets like France and Germany were seemingly not as impressed with the handset. Read on for more.

Reactions to the iPhone 4S were mixed when it was unveiled in October. The handset shares a number of features with its predecessor, as did the iPhone 3GS when it launched, and hype surrounding a rumored iPhone 5 that would offer a design overhaul left a number of onlookers wanting more. When the phone launched later that month, Apple sold 4 million units in the new iPhone’s debut weekend alone and talk of “disappointment” was, for the most part, laid to rest.

To put those figures in perspective, Apple sold 25% more iPhone 4S handsets to end users in three days than Samsung’s Galaxy S II line of smartphones sold — into sales channels — during the its first two months of availability.

Demand was clearly through the roof for Apple’s new smartphone in some markets, but as it turns out, this may not be the case in all regions. Market research firm Kantar Worldpanel’s data shows that Apple lost significant ground in at least two key markets despite the launch of its new smartphone. Coincidentally, perhaps, those two markets are also regions where Apple is focusing a tremendous amount of effort on using the patent system to ban sales of rival handsets.

From September through the end of November this year, Apple’s share of the smartphone market in the U.S. ballooned to 36% from 25% during the same period in 2010 according to Kantar. The iPhone’s performance in the U.K. was equally impressive, pushing Apple’s market share to 31% between September and November compared to 21% a year earlier.

In Germany however, where Android holds 61% of the market and Samsung’s Galaxy S II remains the top-selling handset, Apple’s share slid from 27% during the three-month period ending in November 2010 to 22% during the same period this year. The iPhone lost even more ground in France, where Apple’s share dropped to 20% from 29% over year-over-year. The weakening European economy and sinking prices of competitors’ smartphones are cited by Reuters as likely factors contributing to slowed iPhone sales.

As Android grows more popular in the region, Apple’s patent strategy has seemingly grown more aggressive as well. Germany and France are among the countries where Apple’s patent infringement complaints have been most abundant, targeting competitors such as Samsung, HTC and Motorola. While Apple’s sliding position in these markets is certainly not the only reason the Cupertino, California-based technology giant is attacking its rivals over patents — Apple has also filed numerous complaints in the U.S., where some retailers are still struggling to keep the iPhone 4S in stock — it remains a possibility that Apple’s aggression in France and Germany is fueled at least in part by slowed adoption of its smartphones.

Samsung’s tweaks to the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 weren’t enough to satisfy Apple’s legal team. Apple successfully banned Samsung’s German subsidiaries from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 after it accused the South Korea-based company of patent infringement. Samsung responded by releasing a modified Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet it believed had addressed all of Apple’s concerns. Unfortunately, Apple isn’t satisfied with the changes and it wants to ban Samsung from selling the new tablet as well. A hearing for Apple’s request for an injunction is scheduled for December 22nd, Dow Jones Newswires said. The two companies have been locked in patent-related legal battles around the globe and currently have similar ongoing cases in the United States, Japan, France and Australia.

Read

IPCom has reportedly moved to ban HTC from selling smartphones in Germany. HTC lost a patent lawsuit to IPCom in 2009 and recently decided not to file an appeal against the ruling, likely in an effort to avoid further litigation it might have faced from a ruling on two additional patent cases. HTC may ignore IPCom’s request to stop selling smartphones because it believes IPCom’s lawsuit is no longer valid. According to BBC, HTC has argued that the German Federal Patents court ruled that IPCom’s patent claim was invalid in December of 2010. Whether or not HTC faces a fine for ignoring IPCom’s request will be the court’s decision. “It’s up to the court and could go up to 250,000 euro per violation per phone,” IPCom managing director Bernhard Frohwitter said, noting that IPCom is still willing to settle with HTC if the two companies can reach a licensing agreement.

UPDATE: HTC supplied BGR with the following statement via email:

There have been a lot of claims made by IPCom over the last few days and we want to set the record straight. While IPCom has continued to try to position recent events as a win for them, the events actually represent a setback for IPCom and their efforts to provide returns to their investors. They are currently leaning on a weak finding from 2009 for which HTC has a design around that does not fall within the claim of the patent as it was defined by the Mannheim Court. HTC remains convinced that this case will have NO material impact on our business.

The facts remain:

• Had HTC continued with the appeal of the #100 patent, it is unlikely the Karlsruhe Court of Appeal would have reinstated an injunction based on the #100 patent given that the claim of the patent had been found invalid by the FPC, and that IPCom had conceded during the appeal that the amended claim was not infringed.
• The UK part of the same patent (having the same claim) was found invalid by the English Court in the corresponding Nokia case and revoked in its entirety.  IPCom did not appeal the finding of invalidity but sought to amend the patent on appeal –a tacit acceptance that patent claim as granted was invalid.
• IPCom is now seeking to enforce rights in a patent claim that it knows to be invalid.  Despite almost four years of litigation, IPCom has failed to achieve one significant victory against Nokia or HTC and failed to secure any damages.  On the contrary, IPCom is liable to both HTC and Nokia for substantial sums in legal costs resulting from its many losses.

1. Actions under the so-called #173 and #006 patents were dismissed by the Mannheim court,  actions under the #44, #90#, #99, #120 were withdrawn by IPCom because the cases were unsustainable, actions under #28 EP, #28DE, #107 and #100Utility Model are stayed pending resolution of respective validity proceedings.
2. IPCom’s  ‘victory’ over HTC under the #100 in the District Court of Mannheim in 2009 can hardly be called a victory when the patent claim found to be infringed by the court was subsequently found invalid in the Federal Patents Court.  HTC is confident that the German Supreme Court will ultimately uphold this finding.
3. IPCom might also claim a victory in the so-called #100a  (divisional of the #100) against Nokia in the District Court of Mannheim and the English High Court.   However, these decisions are currently under appeal, and at the same time the UK court found six alternative implementations of the UMTS standard not to infringe the #100a patent.

• HTC is respectful of the intellectual property rights of others and has concluded licences with many other essential patent owners.  However, HTC considers IPCom’s royalty demands to be disproportionate and unjustifiable given the weakness of the patents in its portfolio and the minor importance of the associated inventions to the UMTS standards.
• IPCom’s current strategy is one of desperation because it has been legally outmanoeuvred.  It made a significant tactical mistake  by introducing the  #100a and #100DE directly into the appeal proceedings and now has to start from scratch with those patents in one of the German district courts.
• We reiterate our position that the original injunction relates to only one, now-obsolete, handset.  HTC’s position is supported by earlier rulings of the Court of Appeal in  Karlsruhe in other related IPCom cases.
• We reiterate our position that we have an alternative implementation of the standard in place, which does not infringe the interpretation given to the  #100 patent by the Mannheim Court .
• These two points will now have to be argued before the LG Mannheim if IPCom initiates its ‘Zwangsgeldverfahren’.
• Based on comprehensive legal advice from some of the best patent lawyers in Germany, HTC is confident that District Court of Mannheim, will find in its favour. Meanwhile, HTC has planned for all contingencies.

Read

HTC’s German subsidiaries may soon be barred from selling smartphones in the country following HTC’s recent decision to forgo an appeal to a patent lawsuit won by IPCom in 2009. The ban could spell trouble for HTC smartphone sales during the holiday season. “We will likely use the right awarded by the courts, likely resulting in HTC devices disappearing from shops during the crucial Christmas season,” IPCom said, noting that it hopes to enforce an injunction against HTC’s devices as soon as possible. HTC did not specifically say why it decided to pull its appeal, although The Guardian said HTC has previously indicated that its appeal argument was redundant. ”While HTC can try to oppose the enforcement of the injunction, my research shows that the odds are very long against HTC on this one,” patent expert Florian Müller of FOSS Patents said, noting that HTC likely withdrew its appeal to avoid a court ruling on two additional IPCom patents HTC was accused of infringing on. The company recently warned that its revenue could fall 8% this quarter after its Android smartphones were met with tough rival devices from competitors Apple and Samsung.

Read [The Guardian] Read [FOSS Patents]

FOSS Patents is reporting that Motorola has won an injunction related to a patent infringement lawsuit in Germany, Europe’s largest market. According to the ruling by a Mannheim Regional Court, Apple is barred from selling any mobile device that infringe on two Motorola Mobility patents filed in April of 2003. Motorola is also reportedly owed for past damages. One of the patents in question relates to GSM, UMTS and 3G, and it is unclear what the second patent covers. If Motorola Mobility actually has won an injunction against all of Apple’s mobile devices in Germany, it would be a huge win for the company and Google’s Android platform as well. We’ll keep you updated.

UPDATE: It looks like Motorola’s win was scored against Apple Inc. rather than its local subsidiary, Apple Germany. As Apple Inc. doesn’t sell anything in Germany, it looks like this is an empty victory for Motorola, but under the ruling, this affects “new goods” which means that Apple can’t deliver new products to Apple Germany. We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.

Read