Cornered, Motorola has finally agreed to license its cellular standards-essential patents to Apple and evidently it won't get rights to any Apple IP in return. And that was what Motorola and its new parent Google really wanted.

Anyway, it happened in Germany with some help from the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe and applies only in Germany but came to light in a Motorola filing late Monday in a court case in California.

It's unclear when it happened but it's likely it was in August.

Apple made Motorola/Google an offer that under German law Googlerola had to accept or be up to its collective neck in hot water for antitrust.

FOSS Patents says they haven't agreed on the FRAND royalty rate and unless they do the court will decide.

Motorola has been demanding 2.25% of Apple sales for such things, which is not fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.

Apple will also owe something for past infringement, because it wouldn't take a license on Motorola's terms. Apparently Motorola's acceptance of Apple's offer hinged on Apple admitting past infringement; at least that's how Motorola couched it.

It obviously helped that the European Commission and its FRAND investigation of Motorola and Samsung was looking over everybody's shoulder.

Motorola also has some Wi-Fi and H.264 video codec standards-essential patents that Apple will also be wanting rights to.

Foss Patents says "Apple now knows what kind of offer it has to make to get a license to any other standard-essential Motorola patents without having to grant a license to Google (Motorola) to a single non-standard-essential Apple patent. Apple will be happy to pay FRAND royalties as long as it can pursue differentiation."

The blog, scratching its head again over why Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola, says, "This is a very significant development because it means that Motorola Mobility will have to rely on non-standard-essential patents in its efforts to gain leverage over Apple - at least in Germany.

See www.fosspatents.com/2012/08/google-loses-leverage-as-motorola.html.