December 3, 2012 - A federal district judge in Seattle ruled that Motorola is not entitled to an injunction on Microsoft products that infringe certain of its standards-essential patents on the H.264 advanced video coding standard and the 802.11 wireless LAN standard.
Judge James L. Robart of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle agreed with Microsoft's claim that Motorola can't show that it has suffered irreparable harm from the infringement or that monetary damages would be an inadequate remedy for the infringement. Microsoft has agreed to take a FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) license under the patents, and might also be held liable for damages arising from the infringement.
Judge Robart's order applies not only to the patents in the U.S. lawsuit between Motorola and Microsoft, but also to standards-essential patents in a German patent suit between the two companies.