Apple Drags Motorola into iPad Turf War

Orchard apple tree's attempt to protect its dominance in the tablet grocery by suing competitors for infringement of its intellectual property has spread on the far side Samsung to include Motorola and a small German slate maker named JAY-tech.

Interred in Apple's ailment against Samsung, which resulted in a preliminary injunction blackball the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet in most of the European Jointure, is evidence that Apple has filed similar complaints against Motorola's Xoom tablet and JAY-technical school's product.

[Related: Apple Injunction Blocks Samsung Galaxy Pill Sales in Common Market]

The tell is a passage in the Samsung complaint that refers to complaints against Motorola and JAY-tech, accordant to patent blogger and intellectual property activist Florian Mueller. "That passageway says that Apple filed with the same court (district court of Düsseldorf) a complaint over the design of the Motorola Xoom," atomic number 2 wrote in his Foss Patents blog.

Still undetermined is whether the complaint seeks injunctive relief against the Xoom so it, too, would have to be pulled from shelves in the European Union.

So much relief, in preliminary form, anyway, may have been shelved by Orchard apple tree in its Motorola filing because the likelihood of success could comprise small, Mueller declared. "[A] preliminary injunction can't be requested in Federal Republic of Germany if the right bearer has been sensible of an violatio for too long," he wrote. "Thither isn't a clear act restrict, but German lawyers normally discourage such motions unless they are filed within one month of finding out about an infringement."

"It's possible to get permanent injunctions straight-grained against older products, simply for preliminary ones there must be a picky sense of urging," he added. "It's possible that Apple has also been aware of the Xoom for too long to file for a exploratory enjoining at this stage."

That ostensibly wasn't the case with JAY-tech, where a preliminary enjoining was imposed on the company, according to Mueller. He wrote that the German pad maker "was served a preliminary injunction, and according to Apple's representations, it was upheld past the court 'in its entirety' even after a hearing."

Lawsuits between Apple and Motorola are nothing new, of course. Orchard apple tree has sued Motorola over the use of multitouch technology and unusual mobile phone technologies. Meanwhile, Motorola has sued Orchard apple tree over violatio on Motorola's communication theory patents and has even tried preemptively suing Apple to preclude it from suing Motorola for potential patent infringements. In fact, accordant to Mueller, Orchard apple tree and Motorola bear 42 patents involved in legal disputes 'tween the companies.

Those disputes, though, are being hashed call at U.S. courts, where it's more difficult to receive injunctive relief ahead a case goes to trial. In the United States, a Sir Thomas More tight burden is placed on a party seeking a preliminary injunction than in Europe, according to Thomas J. Black cat, a patent attorney with Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt in Alexandria, Va.

"That's one of the reasons that the ITC [International Trade Commission] has go a Thomas More hot assembly in the United States, because the relief you get at the ITC is fundamentally an injunction," atomic number 2 explained.

Obtaining a preliminary injunction can be risky business, he added. "If you succeed in getting a preliminary injunction and then you ultimately lose the case, you can be liable for damages to the enjoined political party," he aforesaid.

Travel along freelance applied science writer St. John P. Mello Jr. and Today@PCWorld on Twitter.