Court: Motorola can't enforce injunction against Microsoft

Google-owned Motorola Mobility won't be able to enforce a German court injunction against Microsoft in a patent dispute, after a federal appeals panel in San Francisco upheld a judge's order blocking the company from doing so.

Bloomberg reports that the three-judge panel said the order was properly tailored.

The two sides have been fighting for a couple of years over Microsoft's ability to sell software for Xbox and Windows products in Germany.

As our Mary Jo Foley reported earlier this year:

"Microsoft was granted an injunction and temporary restraining order against Motorola, which was seeking to stop Microsoft from selling certain products in Germany. The decision means that Motorola will not be able to stop Microsoft from shipping products in Germany until after the U.S. courts have made a decision about whether Motorola is breaching its promise to provide at reasonable rates the use of its video patents around H.264. A Microsoft spokesperson said the German court decision will not go into effect until after the ruling in the U.S. court of the November 2010 lawsuit, and that this case will be determined later this year."

For more background, see this Seattle Times piece from earlier this year.