Germans won’t be getting push email anytime soon with Apple’s appeal to the Mannheim regional court failed. The court basically sided with Motorola Mobility, and agreed with an earlier decision that saw the company forced to remove the service in Germany earlier in February.
The court also is forcing Apple to pay damages to Motorola Mobility (and indirectly Google, since now they own the company), but the exact amount has not been revealed by the courts, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
This ban applies to all iOS users “within the borders of Germany”, according to its support page that also offers a workaround – which is basically setting it to get emails at a set interval of time (like every minute or five). However, all other push email services including Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync are unaffected by this ban.
Motorola, however, is having problems of its own. According to The Next Web, the company is being investigated by the European Commission to see if it was abusing its standard-essential patents (or really, really, really important technologies) to hamper competition with rivals. Both Apple and Microsoft filed complaints saying that Motorola was not offering a ‘fair price’ as part of the EU’s Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) policy.
Another Android manufacturer, Samsung, is also being probed by the EU with the same reasoning.
The case dealing with Motorola’s communications standards – which is also the heart of the European Commission’s case – was adjourned by the court with the judge not saying when he will issue a decision.