Bangalore: The headline may seem false, but Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility has indeed dropped a complaint against one of its big rival, Apple, without any explanation!

The news was reported after Motorola Mobility’s brief filing with the International Trade Commission earlier this week. According to Reuters, Motorola said it is dropping without prejudice, the complaint accusing Apple of infringing seven of its patents.

There were earlier reports of Apple and Google engaging in settlement talks. But Apple did not respond to questions seeking comment on the latest one and Google said "there are no agreements between Motorola and Apple, written or oral, express or implied, concerning the subject matter of this investigation."

Apple has been engaged in patent fight with Google since 2010. Hence this decision from Google came as a surprise, especially to Google’s hardware partners who were dragged into the patent battles only because they promote Android- Apple’s eternal enemy. But Google made it clear with a statement: "As we have said many times before, we will continue to vigorously defend our partners."

But according to Florian Mueller, who was the first to report about this case withdrawal on his blog, “Google withdrew the complaint to prevent it from being consolidated with an earlier case, thus slowing that case down.”

In that earlier case, a judge had preliminary ruled that Apple infringed on a patent for eliminating noise and other interference during voice and data transmissions. The final decision on it is due next April.

"Maybe Google wanted to maintain their chances of at least getting some win against Apple in the U.S. in 2013," continued Muller.