Microsoft Wins Patent Battle against Motorola Mobility

Being able to handle yourself ably in the patent wars is important for any company looking to get a leg up these days. Google, Apple and Microsoft seem to be engaged in these wars on almost a daily basis, with each company winning small battles here and there. The latest victory for Microsoft came last Thursday when the International Trade Commission said that the company did not violate a patent that was owned by Google.

At the heart of the issue was the search engine giant’s claims that Microsoft’s Xbox entertainment system was violating a patent that is owned by subsidiary Motorola Mobility. This was a rather large battle, in the scheme of things, since the ITC could have barred the Xbox from being imported into the U.S. had the ruling gone the other way. This battle has been waged for almost three years now. Motorola Mobility originally alleged that Microsoft was infringing on five different patents.

Over the course of the fight, four of the disputed claims were dropped but one remained. That final patent had to do with the way that devices are able to communicate wirelessly. While this case now appears to be settled, it took anything but a normal path towards completion. In April of last year, an ITC judge actually ruled that the Xbox maker had violated four of the five patents.

Normally that would have been the end of the case but an ITC panel decided to send the case back to David Shaw for reconsideration. This January, Google asked a trade panel to drop two of the patent claims as part of a larger settlement with federal regulators. As part of that settlement, Google said it would no longer be going after sales bans as part of cases that had to do with standard essential patents.

By the time of this ruling, only one filing remained and a judge ruled in March that the Xbox did not violate that patent. On Thursday, the ITC backed up that ruling and the case was ostensibly finished.