Motorola, Apple Trial Dismissed by Judge
US Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner has had enough with the shenanigans of Apple and Motorola. He has decided to dismiss both Apple and Samsung's infringement claims days before the two parties were to go to trial, though it is still tentative at this point. He is working on his judgement now.
“I have tentatively decided that the case should be dismissed with prejudice because neither party can establish a right to relief,” he wrote. “I may change my mind.”
Basically, both sides tried to convince the judge that the other was purposefully infringing on the other's patents. Both laid out their cases, and the judge didn't buy it and decided against an injunction case. "The costs of such an order would be disproportionate to the patent holders’ harm, the alleged infringer’s benefit and “would be contrary to the public interest,” he wrote.
The case centered around Apple's accusation that Motorola had infringed on four of its computer related patents, many specifically appearing in the Droid line of devices and the Xoom tablet.
It seems that judges are beginning to get tired of the frivolous lawsuits being thrown back and forth. Google and Oracle have been struggling with a judge who has been openly spiteful of both sides, before the case was eventually found in Google's favor.
Motorola, meanwhile, was going after a single patent's worth of infringement relating to its cellular communications technology. They were seeking $347 million in damages.
Normally cases like these get to at least the jury stage. But by dismissing the claims of both sides, he made it so that neither case reached trial and therefore jury. That is surprisingly unusual.
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