No iPhone in Germany?
Submitted by brian s hall on 3 February, 2012 - 08:59
I'm not a lawyer (God be praised).
I also find it sadly ironic that not only in America but in all democracies, the legal process and legal decisions seem deliberately wrapped in obfuscation.
This is, I suspect, a way for the well-tended legal guild to maintain control and preserve their margins and status. As always, those ostensibly free market organizations with deep, powerful ties into government, such as government unions, lawyers, tax accountants and more have positioned themselves well against technical and cultural disruption.
Which is a story for another day. For this day, it appears that Google (nee Motorola) owns the exclusive rights to provide cloud-based services for mobile devices. At least, that's the way this ruling in Germany reads to me. Perhaps someone who did something awful in a past life and is now a lawyer can set me straight.
Motorola Mobility has won a permanent injunction against Apple’s iCloud which could block the sale of iPhones and iPads in Germany after a court decision against Apple Sales International, the sales organisation based in Ireland.
The Mannheim Regional Court – which has also hosted patent cases between Samsung and Apple – has given Motorola a permanent injunction against the iCloud cloud storage service and any devices that access it. Despite being related to Apple’s European distribution arm, the injunction only applies to Germany.
The original complaint was filed by Motorola in April 2011 and concerned a patent for a "multiple pager status synchronization system and method" which the company claimed was used in Apple’s iCloud service. A default judgement on the case was passed in November.