Wednesday, May 2nd 2012
Motorola Wins Sales Injunction in Germany Against Windows 7 and Xbox 360
Earlier this morning, Mannheim Regional Court in Germany granted Motorola a sales injunction against Microsoft's Xbox 360, Windows 7, Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player. It's no more a question of "if", but "when" the judgement will be enforced. When that happens, Motorola can insist on pulling those products off the German market. Motorola holds two technology patents this case is built around: EP0538667 and EP0615384, which are key to getting the H.264 video compression format to work. Motorola is obliged to license these patents to other under "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms, however, it demanded royalties from Microsoft that would amount to an excess of US $4 billion annually. Microsoft did not accept Motorola's terms, and knocked the doors of regulators claiming Motorola was being unfair and unreasonable with its patents. A case of patent infringement by Motorola is pending against Microsoft, but it is held up as authorities in the US are yet to ascertain Microsoft's allegations (of Motorola being anti-competitive).
Sources:
FOSS Patents, Slashgear
26 Comments on Motorola Wins Sales Injunction in Germany Against Windows 7 and Xbox 360
Removing the support would be a b!tc# though,….
Maybe this is part of the reason why Microsoft Media Center will be a paid add on for Windows 8.
This feels like Microsoft vs the anti virus software vendors pertaining to its plan to use Windows Defender. Microsoft is scorned for the lack of security in the earlier Windows and yet they are also scorned for trying to get full control of security.
And remember that MS and others are talking to the Law about them feeling Motorola used the patents in a bad way. So this could go either way.
Why do I have the feeling that Apple and Google are the ultimate villains? They looked like they are competing each other but I view them as secret partners who maintain huge chunks of consumers respectively to ensure that neither of them will be accused of dominance or invoke anti-trust investigations. Apple will let Google have half of the empire as long as its Android kept the competitors in check, fragmented. The perfect crime?
Having said that, I’ve found Adobe Flash and PDF reader to be something of a security risk and I am rethinking their place on my Windows 7 systems and OS X systems. Sure one can try and keep them updated but it might be better to just avoid them altogether,….
Source: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/05/motorola-wins-sales-ban-on-xbox-and-windows-7-but-cant-enforce-it.ars