Google’s Motorola Unexpectedly Withdraws Its Latest ITC Complaint Against Apple.
In August, Google’s Motorola Mobility filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), asking the ITC to basically ban the import of virtually all of Apple’s hardware products. A few weeks ago, the ITC decided to formally investigate these claims. Now, however, Motorola has unexpectedly withdrawn its complaint.
FOSS Patent’s Florian Mueller has the full text of Google’s filing, which the ITC published earlier today:
UNOPPOSED MOTION TO TERMINATE OF COMPLAINANTS MOTOROLA MOBILITY LLC, MOTOROLA MOBILITY IRELAND AND MOTOROLA MOBILITY INTERNATIONAL
Under 19 C.F.R. § 210.21(a), Complainants Motorola Mobility LLC, Motorola Mobility Ireland, and Motorola Mobility International Limited (collectively, ‘Motorola’) hereby move to terminate all claims in this investigation without prejudice based on Motorola’s withdrawal of the complaint, with Motorola and Apple each bearing their own costs and attorneys’ fees. There are no agreements between Motorola and Apple, written or oral, express or implied, concerning the subject matter of this investigation. Respondent Apple Inc. and the Office of Unfair Import Investigations Staff Attorney have confirmed that they do not oppose this motion.
As none of the seven patents involved in this complaint were standards-essential, most pundits assumed that Google actually stood at least a small chance to get the ITC to ban some of Apple’s imports.
Typically, as Mueller notes, a withdrawal like this would indicate that the two parties reached some kind of settlement. The motion, however, clearly states that “there are no agreements between Motorola and Apple, written or oral, express or implied, concerning the subject matter of this investigation.”
Why exactly Motorola decided to withdraw the complaint remains a bit of a mystery. Maybe, Mueller speculates, Motorola’s issues with tracking down certified copies of all of the necessary documents had something to do with this, or maybe Motorola thought it couldn’t win the lawsuit.
We have asked Google for a comment about why it withdrew the complaint, but the company isn’t talking about the reasoning behind this move. Here is the brief statement we received from Google: “As we have said many times before, we will continue to vigorously defend our partners.”
구글이 모토롤라 모빌리티를 통해 애플에 제기했던 7개의 스마트폰 관련 특허 소송을 설명없이 취하했다고 합니다.
이 특허들은 음성인식과 비디오, 이메일 통지와 같은 특허들입니다.
특허번호: 5,883,580, 5,922,047, 6,425,002, 6,983,370, 6,493,673, 7,007,064, 7,383,983.
모토롤라와 애플은 이 소송에 대해 합의를 보지 않은 것으로 알려졌으며,
다른 기사들을 보면 애플의 삼성 소송 승리 이후, 구글이 애플에 화해 제스쳐를 보낸 것이 아닌가 추정하고 있네요.
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