Apple overturns German online sales ban on iPhone, iPad

Germany seems to be a hotbed for patent war activity at the moment with Apple now overturning an online sales ban on many of its 3G gadgets.

Just this morning we reported on an injunction won by Motorola preventing Apple selling the iPad 2, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 on it's official online shop due to its alleged infringement on a 3G patent.

However, the wheels of justice move quickly in these matters and Apple has been able to strike down the injunction with haste.

Moto being unreasonable?

The Cupertino-based company says that the legal see-saw was able to occur due to Motorola Mobility's refusal (no doubt backed by its new friends at Google) to "reasonably" license the patent to Apple.

An Apple spokeswoman told AllThingsD: "All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly.

"Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago."

Apple is now in the process of repopulating its store, but Motorola which initially filed for the injunction in December, will continue the fight for a reinstatement of the ban.

Via: AllThingsD

Microsoft profits stagnate as Windows sales fall

Microsoft has announced company record revenues for a single quarter, but profits are slightly down on the same period last year.

The Redwood-based giant reported total revenue of $20.89 billion for the Q2 2012, which is up five per cent on the previous year's figure of $19.95 billion.

However the company's bottom line has fallen ever so slightly with quarterly profits of $6.62 billion compared with the $6.63 billion it reported for the three months ending December 31st 2010.

Microsoft delivered 78 cents in earnings per share

Windows loses will sting

Perhaps more pertinent for CEO Steve Ballmer will be the 6 per cent reduction in Windows sales to $4.74 billion. However, with Windows 8 out later this year, the company should be able to bounce back in 2012.

"We delivered solid financial results, even as we prepare for a launch year that will accelerate many of our key products and services," said Ballmer.

"Coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show, we're seeing very positive reviews for our new phones and PCs, and a strong response to our new Metro style design that will unify consumer experiences across our phones, PCs, tablets, and television in 2012."

The business sector, which includes Microsoft Office, was up 3 per cent on last year.

Bing closer to profitability

In some better news for Microsoft, the Bing search engine is edging somewhat closer to being a profitable entity for the company.

In the last quarter, the division only lost $458 million compared to $559 million a year ago.

Apple hits 250 million iOS device sales

Apple has sold over 250 million iOS devices worldwide, the company announced at the iPhone 4S launch today.

That's a quarter of a billion iPod Touches, iPhones and iPads in people's pockets and bags around the world.

As well as the iOS sale-a-thon, Apple announced that its App Store is also going great guns – no surprise there – with over 500 thousand apps now available, with 140,000 of those made for the iPad.

Appgasm

We just can't get enough of those handy applications, it seems, having clocked up over 18 billion downloads – and still going strong with 1 billion more downloaded every month.

It was good news on the Mac front too. Apple bragged that Mac OS X Lion has been downloaded over 6 million times since it was released in July 2011.

"For the first time we've offered Mac OS as a digital download," said Tim Cook, Apple CEO, speaking at tonight's iPhone launch. "The results are staggering."

Bullish

He went on to talk bullishly about the MacBook Air, saying that "Our customers love it, and our competitors are trying to copy it. The Air is just a portion of our entire lineup of Macs, which are the best we've ever shipped."

Speaking of which, he couldn't help but brag about how well the whole Mac line is doing, claiming that, "The Mac outgrew the PC market by almost 6x. This is incredible!"

It is impressive - and a nice spot of Jobsian hyperbole there, we note.

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