"Indeed, we have a big project together that will be out in eight months," Starck told France Info radio, declining to comment further because of what he called California-based Apple's "secrecy cult".

The 63-year-old designer did however say that the project was "fairly, if not very, revolutionary".

Starck, who has previously designed everything from night clubs to bus passes, also told how for years he regularly visited legendary Apple boss Steve Jobs, who died in October, at his Palo Alto, California, home.

"For seven years I went to see him once a month in Palo Alto and I'm going there on Monday because even if he's dead, now I go to see his wife. We used to love talking about interesting things," he said.

The Mannheim regional court found that Apple's iCloud and MobileMe services breached the patents on the technology held by Motorola Mobility and it ordered Apple to pay damages to Motorola, but did not specify the amount.

The ruling marks a victory in a series of bitter patent war between various technology giants.

Earlier this month, European regulators opened two antitrust investigations against Motorola Mobility, bought by US Internet giant Google.

The European Commission said it would check whether Motorola had abused a dominant market position on patents by seeking injunctions to stop Apple and Microsoft from selling their iPhone, iPad, Xbox and Windows products.

Microsoft and Apple accuse Motorola Mobility of unfairly using its extensive patent portfolio to try to block competing products through court orders across the EU and by charging excessive licensing prices for essential patents.