Munich I Regional Court presiding judge Dr Peter Guntz has ruled in favour of Apple in the latest patent infringement case, putting a dent in the ambitions of Motorola Mobility.

A large number of Motorola's products were found to infringe on Apple's device unlock patents, specifically patent number EP1964022 detailing "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image".

This could lead to Motorola having to remove any slide-to-unlock features from its devices, instead settling on the slide-to-unlock circle implemented in the Samsung Galaxy Note, which was found to not impede on Apple's IP.

Motorola has appealed the decision. 

Slide to infringe

Over at FOSS Patents, Florian Mueller has picked apart the implications of the case.

"Motorola's German business is rather small so far," he wrote.

"But MMI is in the process of being acquired by Google, and after the acquisition, Motorola will likely gain market share everywhere at the expense of third-party Android device makers.

"Google will certainly treat Germany as a priority market. Furthermore, Apple is asserting the same patent as well as a related utility model against Samsung in Mannheim, and can always bring claims against more Android device makers in this jurisdiction.

"Today's ruling is significant bad news for Android at large, and Google," he added.

Of course, Motorola can easily modify the UI on its devices, but it does provide Apple with differentiation in terms of user experience, however subtle.

[source: FOSS Patents]