Microsoft wins injunction against Motorola phones in Germany

On Friday, a German court ruled that several of Motorola's Android devices infringed on a patent of Microsoft's relating to the File Allocation Table system architecture. The lower regional Mannheim court issued an injunction against the sale of Motorola phones including the Atrix, the Razr, and the Razr Maxx, according to AllThingsD.

The patent in question allows the creation of flexible names for media files in the FAT filesystem, so users can find and change file names easily. It creates two names for a file: an operating system file name and an application system file name that permits a user to edit it.

Microsoft is hoping to get Motorola, now part of Google, to pay for licenses with the company, but Motorola has yet to do so. "We will continue to enforce injunctions against Motorola Mobility products in those countries and hope they will join other Android device makers by taking a license to Microsoft’s patented inventions," Microsoft's deputy general counsel David Howard said in a statement.

Motorola told AllThingsD that it is considering an appeal. As the injunction stands, Motorola would have to compensate Microsoft for every device sold in Germany with the infringing patent on it. It would also have to turn over any infringing devices that remain in Germany in Motorola's possession, to be destroyed.

The injunction is not final, as Microsoft will have to put up a security deposit of €10 million to €30 million ($12.4 million to $37 million), for the court to keep in case Motorola appeals and is found not guilty of patent infringement in a second suit.

Motorola and Microsoft have been tangled in a number of patent suits already, which have resulted in an injunction against Motorola in Germany for a patent relating to SMS services on a phone, and one against Motorola in the US for patent infringement relating to Microsoft's Active Sync. In Germany again, Motorola secured injunctions against Microsoft for patents on the Xbox 360, but must wait for a related case in the US to finish before it can enforce the injunction.