A German Appeals Court has given back some of iCloud's functionality in the country by lifting an injunction blocking the email push delivery feature. The injunction was part of a Motorola patent infringement lawsuit that alleged the email push notification feature Apple offers iOS users relied on technologies that weren't properly licensed.
Motorola Mail push ban gets lifted in Germany
The injunction went in place back in February 2012. While iPhone users in Germany can still use Apple's Mail app to process email messages, they couldn't use the built-in feature that allowed messages to come through automatically and instead had to manually check for new emails, or set an interval for email downloads, once the injunction was in place.
A German court had ruled that Apple's Mail feature that would deliver new messages without user interaction violated a Motorola Mobility patent and ultimately issued an injunction blocking Apple from offering that option in the country. With the injunction lifted, Google — which happens to own Motorola Mobility now — doesn't have much to be excited about.
Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents stated,
Google wasted a ton of money on Motorola's patents. As of today, it has zero — I repeat, zero — enforceable patent injunctions in place against Apple and Microsoft, after almost three years of litigation. By contrast, Apple and Microsoft have scored a number of real wins against Motorola Mobility.
Once the legal process in Germany is completed, Mr. Mueller expects the whole incident will turn out poorly for Motorola. He expects that instead of Motorola Mobility collecting damages from Apple, Apple will ultimately win damages from Motorola for enforcing an injunction that shouldn't have been granted.
Apple must post a bond before it can reinstate the email push feature in Germany, which no doubt the company will do soon. Once that happens, iPhone owners in Germany will once again have the ability to use Apple's Mail features just as everyone else already does.