Apple overturns Motorola's iPad and iPhone sales bans

Apple has been granted a temporary suspension of a sales ban imposed on some of its products in Germany.Continue reading the main story

Motorola Mobility had forced Apple to remove several iPad 

and iPhone models from its online store earlier today after 

enforcing a patent infringement court ruling delivered in December.

An appeals court lifted the ban after Apple made a new licence payment offer.

However, Germany-based users may still face the loss of 

their push email iCloud service after a separate ruling.

Patent consultant Florian Mueller, who attended the review, 

said that the suspension may only last a few days or weeks - 

but that Apple's revised proposal had been enough to allow it to restart sales.

"The Karlsruhe higher regional court believes that Apple's new 

offer needs to be evaluated before this injunction can enter into 

force again,"he wrote on his blog.

"A suspension like this is available only against a bond, but Apple is

 almost drowning in cash and obviously won't have had a problem 

with obtaining and posting a bond."

He said that the bond amount was likely to have been about 120m 

euros ($158m, £100m).

Unresolved

A statement from Apple said: "All iPad and iPhone models will be

 back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly.

"Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to

 license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having

 declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago."

However, Motorola signalled that it would try to restore the ban.

"We are pleased that the Mannheim court has recognized the

 importance of our intellectual property and granted an enforceable 

injunction in Germany against Apple Sales International," a statement said.

"Although the enforcement of the injunction has been temporarily 

suspended, Motorola Mobility will continue to pursue its claims against Apple."

Pulled products

The sales ban relates to Motorola's patent for a "method for performing a 

countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system".

Motorola licenses the patent to other companies on Frand (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms.

Frand-type patents involve technologies that are deemed to be part 

of an industry standard. In this case Motorola's innovation is deemed 

crucial to the GPRS data transmission standard used by GSM cellular 

networks across the world.

Companies must offer Frand-type patents for 

a reasonable fee to anyone willing to pay.

Apple had previously said it would be willing

 to pay the fee going forward, but the two firms

 dispute how much Apple should pay for failing to

 license the technology up until now. Missed payments 

are not covered by the "reasonable" rule, and Motorola 

is able to demand a more expensive price.

Apple's iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 had all 

been affected - but not its newer iPhone 4S. All 3G 

models of the iPad were involved, but not their wi-fi-only counterparts.

Email technology

The separate push email ban would only come into 

effect if Motorola decided to enforce a second

 judgement that Apple's iCloud and MobileMe

 infringed another of its innovations.

The patent relates to two-way communications

 between pagers and other devices and was granted in 2002.

If Motorola decides to enforce the judgement some iPhone users

 in Germany would lose the ability to automatically receive 

emails as soon as they have been sent. Instead they would either have to manually check their accounts or set their devices to periodically check for updates.

This patent is not deemed to be critical to an industry standard, so the firm does not have to license the technology to Apple even if the iPhone-maker offered to pay.