On Thursday, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner tossed Apple’s pending courtroom trial with Google-owned Motorola.
“You have to prove injury,” Posner reportedly told the companies at a pretrial conference. “I’m sorry that it seems to be petering out like this.”
But as of this week, the judge hasn’t seen enough compelling reason to let next week’s trial proceed.
“I have tentatively decided that the case should be dismissed with prejudice because neither party can establish a right to relief,” Posner said in a written order obtained by Bloomberg.
Posner, however, said he would delay “entering final judgment until he writes a lengthier decision.”
“I may change my mind,” he says.
Posner’s ruling scraps what would have been the first patent trial between them since Mountain View, California-based Google completed its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. last month.
So far, Apple and Google haven’t offered formal comment on the matter.
Apple maintains that Motorola has violated a number of its mobile phone and tablet-related patents. Motorola is making a similar case against Apple.
