Microsoft Products Xbox 360 to be Banned from Germany, US

Earlier this week a judge for the International Trade Commission ruled that Microsoft was violating four of five Motorola Mobility patents in the Xbox 360, which may affect Microsoft’s ability to import the console to the US. The process has gone a bit faster in Germany, where Microsoft is being put under a sales ban of its Xbox 360 console, Windows 7 system software, Internet Explorer, and Windows Media Player, according to the BBC.

Motorola released a statement saying:

We are pleased that the Mannheim Court found that Microsoft products infringe Motorola Mobility’s intellectual property. As a path forward, we remain open to resolving this matter. Fair compensation is all that we have been seeking for our intellectual property.

Microsoft, however, plans to appeal the ruling in both the US and Germany, stating, “Motorola is prohibited from acting on today’s decision, and our business in Germany will continue as usual while we appeal this decision and pursue the fundamental issue of Motorola’s broken promise.” It has also stated in both cases that it believes, “Motorola will be held to its promise to make its standard-essential patents available on fair and reasonable terms.”

According to Games Industry, the patents in violating include two patents necessary to offer H.264 video coding and playback, “another two are for Wi-Fi technology and a fifth patent deals with communication between the Xbox and accessories.”

The ban in the US cannot be put into effect into a judge lifts a restraining order on the companies, a result of Microsoft claiming that Motorola was, “abusing its Frand-commitments – a promise to licence innovations deemed critical to widely-used technologies under ‘fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory’ terms.” A hearing is scheduled for May 7.

In case things weren’t complicated enough, Motorola Mobility’s lawsuit against Microsoft was a response to Microsoft lodging a complaint against Motorola for infringing on its patents. A judge ruled that Motorola only infringed on one of seven Microsoft patents. Becki Leonard, a spokeswoman for Motorola Mobility stated, “This case was filed in response to Microsoft’s litigate-first patent attack strategy, and we look forward to the full commission’s ruling in August.”

Motorola Mobility reported an annual loss of $145 million last year, and is currently being acquired by Google.