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German court deals Android system another blow

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Germany: At the Munich I Regional Court, Presiding Judge Dr. Peter Guntz has announced his panel’s decision, which had been pushed back by five weeks, on an “Apple v. Motorola Mobility” lawsuit over the “overscroll bounce”, or “rubber-banding”, patent.

The accused Motorola Mobility tablets and smartphones were all found to infringe a patent for a “list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display,” reports “FOSS Patents” (www.fosspatents.com). Apple can now enforce a Germany-wide permanent (but appealable and, therefore, preliminarily-enforceable) injunction now by posting a 25 million bond (or making a deposit of the same amount), “which it undoubtedly will,” the article adds.

All this is part of an ongoing battle between the two companies. Apple has previously alleged that Motorola infringes 24 of its patents (21 of them with Android-based phones, the remaining three with set-top boxes and DVRs), while Motorola previously asserted 18 patents against a variety of Apple products (mostly but not exclusively iPhone, iPad and iPod). Litigation between the two companies has taken place in several different federal courts.

In November 2010 Apple sued Motorola, alleging that the company’s smartphone lineup and the operating software it uses infringe on the iPhone-maker’s intellectual property. The two lawsuits came after Motorola sued Apple in October 2010 for patent infringement. Motorola claims that Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and certain Mac computers infringe Motorola patents.

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