Google Maps Might Be Banned In Germany Over A Patent Dispute

The German courts are on the point of banning Google Maps over a patent dispute with Microsoft.

A judge in Munich has told Google and its subsidiary Motorola Mobility that he is inclined to hold them responsible for infringing a key mapping patent, it has been reported.

The patent refers to “a computer system for identifying local resources”, according to patent expert Florian Mueller.

Google has been unable to convince the court that the patent does not apply to the technology used in its mapping services.

Microsoft is seeking - and very likely to obtain, according to Mr Mueller – an injunction against the Google Maps service.

In order to comply with the likely injunction, Google would have to disable Google Maps from all computers using a German IP address.

It would also have to stop shipping the Google Maps Android app and only distribute web browsers in Germany only if they used internet filters to block access to Google Maps.

Microsoft originally only sued Motorola Mobility and its German subsidiary over the distribution of the Android app. It only engaged Google as a defendant after Motorola executives denied knowledge of how Google Map servers operated.

In order to maintain the service, Google would have to pay royalties to Microsoft for the Microsoft intellectual property that it uses for its maps. Samsung, HTC, LG and other makers of Android devices have already recognised the patent applying to the Microsoft technology and taken out licensing agreement.

The report comes as Google is accused of “arrogance” in the UK after it apparently ignored requests for privacy and published photographs of their homes from its Street View service. 

 

 More than half a dozen homeowners in Surrey asked the web giant not to post images of their properties online after it introduced Street View to Britain in 2009 over fears they could be used by burglars. Google duly blurred the pictures, only to republish fresh, unblurred ones later.

In separate news, it has emerged in a company email that Motorola Mobility is to cut more than 10 per cent of its workforce as Google moves to streamline its mobile phone business.

Google bought the loss-making Motorola for $12.5bn last year, its largest ever acquisition.

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Microsoft's new apps add search tools to Excel, Word

Microsoft last week announced the availability of five new Bing apps for its Office 2013 and Office 365 products. The apps' January 31 arrival came on the heels of the refreshed Office products themselves, which were released on January 29 as both traditional standalone purchases and a subscription-based service.


It remains to be seen how customers will take to the new model, in which users pay perpetual fees in exchange for enhanced cloud functionality, greater license flexibility and access to the latest releases. Any apprehensions about subscription costs, though, won't carry over to the new Bing products, as Microsoft has offered them for free. The apps are intended to inject search functionality into Word and Excel document-creating. They join similar Bing tools already available for Windows 8, Windows Phone and Xbox.

Bing Maps for Office allows Excel users to plot location data onto live, interactive Bing maps. It includes data visualization options, such as translating various column values into different-sized shapes on the map. Users can use either a mouse or touch-based gestures to manipulate the map's view, which can be pinched in to the street level or zoomed out to a bird's eye perspective. 


Bing Finance for Office is a beta product that allows users to create finance portfolio tables in Excel. Stock symbols can be input and fields can be customized to display a wide range of content, including live price updates.
Bing News Search for Office lets users search for news and videos from within Word documents. Results can be inserted into the document with a single click and favorite searches can be saved for later use. 

The last of the five new offerings, Bing Image Search for Office allows users to launch a Web search from within Word by typing into a search box or by selecting text within the document. The app can also insert search returns into the document with a single click. 

According to Microsoft's most recent quarterly earnings, the company's Online Services Division, which is responsible for Bing, posted a mixed performance, increasing its revenue but remaining unprofitable overall. The new Bing apps won't change this picture on their own, but they offer synergies that could help Microsoft's search engine gain market share. Though some users have turned to alternatives such as GoogleDocs and OpenOffice, the Office suite is still among the business world's most ubiquitous and essential tools. If the new apps socialize users to rely on Bing, Microsoft could see incremental gains. According to the most recent numbers from data analytics firm comScore, Bing has achieved positive growth of late but remains a distant second to Google. 

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