A few months ago I told you that Motorola won a lawsuit against Apple that gave it the opportunity to ban the use of the push notification system for iCloud in Germany because it infringes some patents of the Motorola company. It is not known if Apple was forced to remove these service facilities or if Motorola imposed the decision of the German court but according to a document of the Apple company published yesterday, no iCloud user will receive Pushes for emails received via iCloud or MobileMe as long as they are in Germany.
Due to recent patent litigation by Motorola Mobility, iCloud and MobileMe users are currently unable to have iCloud and MobileMe email pushed to their iOS devices while located within the borders of Germany.
Affected customers will still receive iCloud and MobileMe email, but new messages will be downloaded to their devices when the Mail app is opened, or when their device periodically fetches new messages as configured in iOS Settings. Push email service on desktop computers, laptop computers, and the web is unaffected, as is service from other providers such as Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.
Push notifications on computers still remain active and Microsoft Exchange services are not affected by this change. The Contacts and Calendar applications will work without problems and the rest of the European countries are not affected by the change made by Apple for now. After prohibiting the sale of some iDevices for a few hours, this change is the second one made by Apple due to lost lawsuits against the Motorola company in Germany.
UPDATE 16: 25: Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), don't consider this restriction of its services as a very big problem because its clients are anyway notified when they receive an email through the other methods available in iOS, the Fetch system being one of them. Apple is going to appeal against Motorola's decision and will probably reactivate its services in the near future.
This ruling only affects customers in Germany who use a Push setting to get their MobileMe and iCloud email. These customers will still receive email to their devices. Apple believes this patent is invalid and is appealing the decision.
