Some of you guys might recall that early last year, Motorola and Microsoft were still at war against each other with regards to alleged patent infringements. By all appearances Motorola appeared to be in the lead having won injunctions against Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Xbox 360 in Germany, although interestingly it seems that Motorola has since filed a motion with the US ITC today, asking for the withdrawal of two patents from the ongoing lawsuit against Microsoft. These two patents are in relation to the H.264 video patents which are considered to be industry essential standards, meaning that Motorola is required to license them out on FRAND basis. Microsoft’s complaint was that Motorola was asking for too much and that based on their actions, it was not considered to be on a FRAND basis.
However it should be noted that while these two patents will be withdrawn, there is still one patent that Motorola has left in their ITC complaint which is regarding wireless peer-to-peer networking technology, possibly because it is not an industry standard. Microsoft naturally welcomed this withdrawal and stated that they hope Motorola will be doing the same with the lawsuits pending in other jurisdictions, such as in the US District Court of Western Washington where Motorola is demanding royalties that could go as high as $4 billion.