We’ve got an update from the Apple-Motorola Federal Circuit FRAND jurisdictional dispute. Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied Motorola’s motion to dismiss Apple’s FRAND appeal (or transfer the case to the 7th Circuit). For a recap on the issues surrounding this motion and the Apple-Motorola FRAND appeal (this one from Judge Crabb’s court), you can check out our previous posts:
- Background of the district court case
- Motorola moves to dismiss or transfer Apple FRAND appeal
- Apple opposes Motorola dismissal/transfer motion
- Motorola’s reply brief
- Motorola/Apple supplemental submissions
The order is not yet available to the public, but here’s the relevant text from the Federal Circuit’s docket:
ORDER FILED DENYING MOTION TO TERMINATE APPEAL FILED BY MOTOROLA MOBILITY LLC. THE PARTIES ARE DIRECTED TO DISCUSS THE JURISDICTIONAL ISSUES IN THEIR BRIEFS. APPLE’S BRIEF IS DUE WITHIN 21 DAYS FROM THE DATE OF FILING OF THIS ORDER.
We’ll have to wait to see exactly what the order says (and we’ll update this post when the order is publicly available), but it appears that in denying the motion, the Federal Circuit has not necessarily made any decision about the merits of Motorola’s position. Instead, the court has instructed the parties to discuss the jurisdictional issues as part of their regular appellate briefing. (You may recall that the Federal Circuit took a similar path in response to Apple’s request for an en banc hearing in the Apple-Samsung appeal, asking the parties to include any reasoning for an en banc hearing as part of their merits briefs). For Apple, that opening brief will now be due on May 24.
[UPDATE] Here is a LINK to order itself. As you can see, it basically says the same thing as the docket text, but explains that the court “deems it the better course to deny the motion and for the parties to address this court’s jurisdiction in their briefs.” [/UPDATE]