MADISCON, Wisc. (CN) - Apple cannot sue Motorola Mobility, now a Google subsidiary, for patent infringement, a federal judge ruled, in one tentacle of the sprawling smartphone patent war. The dispute reached the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in March 2011 after an administrative law judge at the International Trade Commission removed some of the claims filed with it a year earlier. The case landed on the docket of U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, who was handling a 2010 case between the same parties. She sent that earlier case to the Northern District of Illinois in December 2011. About four months later, the International Trade Commission judge resolved the portions of the case that it retained. Finding that Apple had infringed on two of Motorola's wireless transmission patents, ALJ Thomas Pender opened up the possibility of sales ban of some Apple devices in the United States. Citing jurisdiction, Crabb dismissed the remaining claims in the Wisconsin case with prejudice on Monday.
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