On Friday,  July 5, Microsoft officially filed a lawsuit at the U.S. District Court in Washington against the United States Customs. The official import ban was actually established more than one year ago, in May 2012, and it ruled that Motorola’s devices use the same technology that allow synchronization of calendar events on other machines.

Microsoft feels U.S. Customs and Google are conspiring

What’s even more interesting is that Microsoft “dares” to affirm that the U.S. Customs have actually had secret meetings with Google to continue the import of the banned products, even if Google’s Motorola Mobility have done nothing to exclude the infringing technology. Here are the products we are talking about, with most of them definitely not being amongst your want-to-have list, but they still could end up bought by some consumers.

Motorola 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 Xoom

Microsoft’s Deputy General Counsel, David Howard, said in a statement: What happened is this – Google’s Motorola Mobility lawyers have allegedly convinced the agency to give it a grace period to in order for the changes to be made. However, the United States International Trade Commission has rejected this request, according to Microsoft. So, this basically means that the U.S. Customs went against the law. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft’s patent, the ActiveSync technology involved, only expires in April 2018. As a result, we should expect a new court hearing on Aug 6 in Washington. But the fact that there were secret meetings involved might definitely tip the scales in Microsoft’s favor: This comes at an interesting moment because we know that some older iPhone models should be banned from import in the United States after August 5. In the same time, Apple is also suing Samsung for other patents. But whoever wins, apparently has to face another issue – will the U.S. customs respect the court ruling?

U.S Customs neglect the ITC and side with Google

One of the reasons why the U.S. Customs might not be so strict and correct regarding intellectual property is expressed by patent lawyer Robert Stoll of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP in Washington Apple was in the exact situation just like Microsoft is now, when they filed an enforcement action after the same U.S. Customs didn’t stop imports of some HTC phone models that were infringing intellectual property found inside Apple’s older iPhone. Back then, the companies managed to reach to  an agreement and the lawsuit was withdrawn by Apple. It’s interesting to observe how this will evolve, as we are talking about a federal agency that is apparently involved in secret meetings and refuses to deploy a court’s ruling. Google could also suffer from this, as well. What’s curious is that on Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol webpage, we can find Google amongst the licensees.

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