Ahead of a FRAND contract trial in the Western District of Wisconsin, Apple has formally declared to the court its willingness to pay Motorola Mobility for a license to its standard-essential wireless patents, but it will only write an immediate check to the wholly-owned Google subsidiary if the per-unit royalty doesn't exceed US$1, reports "FOSS Patents" (http://macte.ch/NQdTd).

"If the court sets a FRAND rate at or below $1, Apple will take a license and start to pay right away," Florian Mueller writes for the site. "Otherwise Apple will appeal the decision and exhaust all of its legal options before Google gets anything."

All this is part of an ongoing battle between the two companies. Apple has previously alleged that Motorola infringes 24 of its patents (21 of them with Android-based phones, the remaining three with set-top boxes and DVRs), while Motorola previously asserted 18 patents against a variety of Apple products (mostly but not exclusively iPhone, iPad and iPod). Litigation between the two companies has taken place in several different federal courts.

In November 2010 Apple sued Motorola, alleging that the company's smartphone lineup and the operating software it uses infringe on the iPhone-maker's intellectual property. The two lawsuits came after Motorola sued Apple in October 2010 for patent infringement. Motorola claims that Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and certain Mac computers infringe Motorola patents.