Apple’s problems with patent violations show no signs of abating as Motorola has acquired an injunction against the push email notification system in Apple’s iCloud service. The push email notification service will not be available for German consumers until the patent infringement lawsuit is sorted out in the court. Apple has been quick to find an alternate method that allows users to download the new emails automatically in the background. This method solves the problem for now but the users will not get instant notifications when emails are received.
The Manheim court had granted a permanent injunction three weeks ago, against the push email notification service of Apple iCloud. According to Florian Mueller, a noted patent blogger, it is only a minor inconvenience as the emails will be delivered after two minutes and Apple users in Germany will not that troubled by this problem. Mueller also added that customers are not going to be pleased with the temporary shut-down of vital services as a result of the patent battles between smartphone and tablet manufacturers. Apple has also announced it will be filing an appeal against the injunction as the patent claim is invalid.
Apple has been facing lots of legal issues in recent months which have somewhat hampered its growth in certain countries (or at least led to negative publicity). For instance, it is involved in a lawsuit over iPad trademark with Proview Technology (Chinese firm) and has not been able to take advantage of the large consumer base in China. Also, it had to stop the sale of certain devices like iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G in Germany for a small period of time when Motorola had acquired an injunction in December.
Other companies like Microsoft have smartly entered into patent licensing agreements to prevent such patent infringement lawsuits. However, Motorola has been criticized by rival companies as it has been busy filing patent lawsuits instead of working out a license agreement. Apple also needs to be blamed as it has also been in involved in patent lawsuits that have led to certain applications being unavailable for Android smartphone users. There is a high possibility that Motorola’s patent claim is invalid and it seems unlikely that Apple will settle with Motorola out of court, which is expected to further prolong the game of one-upmanship which seems to be going on.
The ongoing patent disputes between the rival smartphone manufacturers is finally starting to affect consumers and steps need to be taken to prevent such problems in the future.
