Motorola to avoid the US sales ban

Motorola Mobility has announced that it will be avoiding the US sales ban of its smartphones by either altering them or signing a license agreement with Microsoft so that the smartphones no longer infringe on patents.

The interesting thing about this particularly patent infringement is the deal actually worked out rather well for the Google owned firm Motorola. Back in May the International trade commission ruled that a large selection of Motorola’s smartphones infringed on just 1 of the 9 patents that Microsoft filed for. The patent covers technology for a scheduling meetings piece of software.

Naturally the easiest and most cost effective solution for Motorola is to just axe that particular software. By doing that it costs them very little and they avoid paying the price for using someone else’s patented technology. The second option, perhaps the most unlikely of them all, is that Motorola pays Microsoft a nice tidy sum of money for the use of its patent and continues to implement the scheduled meetings software on to its smartphones. It seems almost 100% certain that Motorola will take the cheaper option, this is made even more likely if you consider the way Motorola are being squeezed out of the smartphone market gradually by expanding market shares from Samsung and Apple.

Affected devices include the Atrix, Backflip, Bravo, Charm, Cliq, Cliq 2, Cliq XT, Defy, Devour, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, Droid Pro, Droid X, Droid X2, Flipout, Flipside, Spice and Xoom. The sales ban has gone into place today.

“While we can’t share specific details, we have employed a range of proactive measures to ensure there is no continuing infringement under the ITC’s interpretation of this single Microsoft patent,”  said Becki Leonard, spokesperson for Motorola Mobility, according to Reuters.

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