New Order From Seattle Judge in MS v. Motorola May Mean Good News for Motorola ~pj

Matt Rizzolo at The Essential Patent Blog reports that there's a new order [PDF] from Judge James L. Robart in the Microsoft v. Motorola litigation in Seattle. It gives us our first real clue about why the judge has reopened the trial, after new issues were raised at an oral hearing recently:

Yesterday's order concerns the terms of Google's license with the MPEG LA AVC/H.264 patent pool, which Microsoft claims are dispositive of the appropriate RAND rate for Motorola's H.264 patents.... Judge Robart has now allowed the parties to submit letter briefs of up to six pages by March 1 in light of certain "novel arguments" regarding the MPEG LA agreement that were apparently raised by the parties at the January 28 oral argument.

The details, attorney Rizzolo writes, could mean good news for Motorola.