US federal judge dismisses Motorola’s 13 patent infringement claims against Microsoft
09 Feb 2013
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed over a dozen patent infringement claims filed against Microsoft by Google-owned Motorola Mobility.
US District Court judge James Robart, in Microsoft's home state of Washington, backed the software giant as it threw out 13 claims of infringement on a trio of Motorola patents involving digital video encoding and decoding, according to court records.
According to the documents, the Motorola patents were not specific enough as regards the computer code involved.
The case has been significantly narrowed by the decision.
In the event of the remaining claims surviving a similar legal challenge, Microsoft would likely be entitled to pay a reasonable rate to license what is considered a ''standards-essential'' technology, says intellectual property specialist Florian Mueller, of FossPatents.com.
The development though would not come as a crippling blow to Motorola, according to tech publication Ars Technica.
Jon Brodkin, senior IT reporter at Ars Technica, writes, judge Robart is tasked with deciding what was a "fair and reasonable" rate for the license fees Motorola would be paid by Microsoft for use of patents tied to H.264 video and Wi-Fi standards. Microsoft proposed a payment of $1.21 million per year to Motorola.
However, Motorola demanded 2.25 per cent of the sale price of Windows PCs and Xbox 360s, which it said could amount to billions. Even as Motorola sued Microsoft for patent infringement, Microsoft counter sued Motorola for not meeting its obligation to license standards-essential patents at fair and reasonable rates, which led to multiple court cases being consolidated into one.