The U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit released its decision in Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., the appeal from Judge Posner’s decision on smartphone patent litigation between the two companies. Judge Posner had denied both infringement actions on the basis that neither side could prove damages. In an opinion for the court, along with two opinions dissenting-in-part, the CAFC reversed-in-part, but affirmed, among other things, that Motorola was not entitled to an injunction for infringement of a FRAND-committed patent.

See my earlier comments on Judge Posner’s decision from 2012. Apple and Motorola had both made claims against the other for patent infringement.

As noted by Florian Mueller’s at FOSS Patents in commentary on the decision, some of the same Apple patents are at issue in parallel litigation against Samsung, which is currently in trial and the findings on claim construction will affect that litigation.

A copy of today’s decision from the CAFC is available from the Court’s website – PDF.

Some of the issues considered in the decision include, means-plus-function claims, claim construction, admissibility of damages experts, summary judgment on remedies, entitlement to an injunction for a FRAND-committed patent. Judge Radar dissented on the issue of an injunction for FRAND-committed patents saying that Motorola may have been able to prove that “Apple was an unwilling licensee, which would strongly support its injunction request.” Judge Prost dissented on the issue of claim construction and Apple’s request for an injunction.