A German judge has ruled that Motorola's Android-based devices infringe on a Microsoft-held File Allocation Table (FAT) patent.

Judge Andreas Voss ruled that Motorola gadgets infringe on Microsoft's patent for a "common name space for long and short filenames." Redmond has been given an injunction against the infringing products, but it must put up a 10 million euro  bond for the ban to go into effect.  If Motorola wins the appeal it will be awarded that money for losses incurred during the injunction.

A Motorola spokeswoman said the company is "in process of reviewing the ruling, and will explore all of our options including appeal”. It is Microsoft's third win in its patent fight against Motorola. So far ten Apple and Microsoft software patents have now been deemed valid and infringed by Android-based devices.

In the US, Motorola devices avoided a ban by coming up with a workaround to address the patent violation that prompted the it. Last month, Motorola proposed a settlement that would end its patent dispute with Microsoft but Redmond said no. Motorola Mobility offered to pay 33 cents for every Motorola phone that uses Microsoft ActiveSync. In exchange, Microsoft would pay 50 cents for Windows-based devices that use Motorola-owned technology.