A few months ago Microsoft won its case against Motorola and scored an import ban. The ITC had then decided that the Google-owned company has violated a Microsoft-owned ActiveSync patent and ruled that starting today Motorola will no longer be allowed to import the infringing device.
As you might have noticed Motorola isn't too worried about it and hasn’t really tried hard to find a workaround or achieve an agreement with Microsoft and prevent the decision from coming into effect. The ban only applies to importing the devices in question and not actually selling them to customers, so Moto was probably able to bring enough units into the country by yesterday.
ITC ruled that 33 cents need to be paid for the import of every infringing unit in this review period, but it was probably worth it. If Motorola had chosen to sign a deal with Microsoft instead and license the patents, it would have probably ended up paying several dollars per device.
The ban applies to the following smartphones and tablets: Atrix, Backflip, Bravo, Charm, Cliq, Cliq 2, Cliq XT, Defy, Devour, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, Droid Pro, Droid X, Droid X2, Flipout, Flipside, Spice, and Xoom. As you can see none of these are exactly holding the key to Motorola's market success in the upcoming quarters and the company could probably easily get by without their sales altogether.
So Motorola might have emerged unscratched from this legal battle, but Microsoft is getting ready for another round. The software giant claims that there are other Motorola devices that infringe on its patents, but weren't mentioned in the ITC ruling so we might see a new lawsuit involving those two in the near future.
