Motorola SEP battle stayed in Germany
The Mannheim Regional Court has stayed a dispute between Motorola Mobility and Apple over fees for using standards-essential patents (SEPs), pending a European Commission investigation.
It has also asked the Commission, which is investigating Motorola over alleged SEP abuses, to have its say on the case.
The patents cover the ETSI GPRS standard for mobile and wireless communications.
Motorola wants Apple to pay a 2.25 percent royalty rate for licensing its SEPs on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) grounds.
But in May this year the Commission gave a “preliminary view” that by seeking and enforcing an injunction against Apple when it was willing to license the patents on FRAND terms, Motorola broke EU antitrust rules.
That was a reference to the injunction Motorola won against Apple in early 2012, forcing it to remove certain products from its iCloud online store, but the order was later revoked.
If companies agree to license SEPs on FRAND terms but are threatened with an injunction, the Commission said, licensing negotiations could be distorted and unjustified terms imposed on licensees.
A final call will be made after Apple and Motorola have “exercised their rights of defence”, the Commission has previously indicated.
In the case’s latest development, the Mannheim court has not publicly revealed which questions it referred to the Commission because, according to the FossPatents blog, they relate to a confidential contractual relationship between Apple and Motorola.
But the blog’s author, Florian Müller, said the court did say that the “questions relate to what kinds of terms constitute a FRAND agreement”.
It is very unlikely, he added, that the Commission would provide any input on royalty rates, as competition enforcers “try hard to avoid making or reviewing patent portfolio valuation of any kind”.
In the US, only two judges have set royalty rates for RAND agreements, with Motorola a party in one of those cases. Judge Robart ordered Microsoft to pay the Google-owned company $1.8 million a year for using its SEPs, though Motorola had demanded around $4 billion annually.
Neither Apple nor Motorola could be reached for comment.
