Microsoft and Google subsidiary Motorola have been in a legal fight over the use of Motorola patents in Microsoft"s products for some time. In November, the two companies took their fight to a Seattle federal court. Microsoft has claimed Motorola is not offering its essential patents for 802.11 wireless and H.264 video standards under "fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms," otherwise known as FRAND.
Cut to last week, when Google and the Federal Trade Commission announced a new settlement that included, among other things, Google agreeing to not file any injunctions on companies that license its FRAND patents. Microsoft later labeled the FTC-Google settlement as "weak."
Now AllThingsD.com reports that Microsoft has filed a document with the U.S. International Trade Commission, claiming that the FTC said that the agreement with Google also meant that it had to end all current court cases that involve FRAND patents. Microsoft based this claim on statements made in a press conference last week by FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who said, "My understanding is they’re going to stop trying to seek [an] exclusion order at the ITC."
Microsoft says that it expects Motorola to "immediately dismiss" the current case with the ITC but so far it has not heard anything from the company. So far, Google has yet to comment.
Source: AllThingsD.com | Gavel image via Shutterstock