German court dismisses Motorola's patent lawsuit against Apple

Motorola suffered a setback in Germany this morning, after a Mannheim Regional Court struck down one of the company's several patent lawsuits against Apple. The patent in question, EP1053613, is considered essential to the 3G/UMTS wireless standard and, more specifically, pertains to a "method and system for generating a complex pseudonoise sequence for processing a code division multiple access [CDMA] signal." Motorola Mobility had argued that Apple's products had infringed upon this patent, but Judge Andreas Voss today dismissed these claims, on the basis that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate Cupertino's violation. It's undoubtedly a welcomed victory for Apple, which had been suffering through something of a losing streak against Motorola, but their ongoing tug-of-war is far from over. Neither Motorola nor Apple have commented on the decision, but we'll update this post as soon as we hear more.