Apple Sues Motorola Over XOOM Design

Apple has filed a motion with same court regarding the Motorola Xoom and the document doesn’t say whether or not Apple specifically filed for an injunction against the sale of the Xoom, but merely that it has filed suit in the court claiming that the device infringes on the design of Apple products. Prior to FOSS Patents’ discovery, it was believed that Motorola and Apple had been facing off in the U.S and it appears now that Apple is trying to score another major victory across the Atlantic…………..

 

Prior to or simultaneously with the motion for a preliminary injunction against Samsung, Apple also filed a complaint with the same court over the design of the Motorola Xoom tablet. Here’s a passage from the Samsung complaint that mentions two other lawsuits Apple instigated against iPad competitors Motorola and a local German company named JAY-tech:

That passage says that Apple filed with the same court (district court of Düsseldorf) a complaint over the design of the Motorola Xoom, but it doesn’t state whether that complaint included a request for a preliminary injunction. The other company that Apple sued in Germany, JAY-tech, was served a preliminary injunction, and according to Apple‘s representations, it was upheld by the court “in its entirety even after a hearing. The complaint doesn’t say on which operating system JAY-tech’s banned tablet was going to run, but Android would be by far and away the most likely option. Apple’s dispute with Motorola began in October 2010, but so far it was not known that it has also branched out to Europe — just like Apple’s disputes with Samsung and HTC. In the U.S., an ITC hearing was due later this month on Motorola‘s complaint against Apple, but due to the retirement of Chief Administrative Law Judge Paul Luckern it was postponed. A new date hasn’t been set yet because the ITC firstly needs to assign the case to a new judge. Apple also has an ITC complaint going against Motorola. It’s clear that Apple is determined to assert its different intellectual property rights — hardware patents, software patents, and design-related rights — against Android device makers. While Apple appears to place particular emphasis on lawsuits over tablet computers in its European design-related lawsuits.  It’s possible to get permanent injunctions even against older products, but for preliminary ones there must be a particular sense of urgency. It’s possible that Apple has also been aware of the Xoom for too long to file for a preliminary injunction at this stage.

 

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