patent

Apple vs. Samsung explained in 90 seconds

This nifty little video from Onlinemba.com sets out to explain the history and significance of the epic Apple vs. Samsung patent battle in less than two minutes.

In case you've been living in a hole in the ground where radio, Internet, and blog waves don't penetrate, a court found late this summer that Samsung had infringed some of Apple's mobile device patents with its own mobile designs.

Watch the stat and Che Guevara-filled video for a remarkably concise summary of the whole thing, including the implications for Google, Android, and the wider smartphone universe.

Motorola wins one over Microsoft in German patent case

Score one for Motorola Mobility in the company's ongoing legal battle with Microsoft.

The Google subsidiary today was found to not be infringing a patent Microsoft holds related to applications running on different devices without having to write separate code for each product. The ruling came down in the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany, which has become a hotbed of patent lawsuit activity.

Reuters was first to report on the news.

Motorola's victory today comes less than a week after a federal appeals panel in San Francisco upheld an earlier ruling that stopped the mobile company from blocking … Read more

Oracle appeals ruling in lawsuit over Google's use of Java

Oracle announced today it plans to appeal the verdict in its long-running patent and copyright battle with Google over Java.

The database giant filed a "notice of appeal" with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for an appeals court review of Judge William Alsup's decision in the trial, which found that Oracle's Java API was not copyrightable.

Oracle sued Google for copyright infringement related to Google's use of 37 Java APIs used on its Android mobile operating system. Google argued it was free to use them because the Java programming … Read more

Apple offered patent licensing deal to Samsung before trial

Apple proposed a reciprocal patent agreement to Samsung in the months leading up to their landmark trial, but the two could not arrive at a deal acceptable to both companies.

Apple's intellectual-property licensing director, Boris Teskler, outlined a deal to his equivalent at Samsung, Seongwoo Kim, in a three-page letter that was revealed this week after U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh rejected the companies' request to keep documents sealed.

Tesker's April 30 letter (see below) offered to license Samsung's 3G/UMTS patents for what it considered to be reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms rather than … Read more

AT&T, Clearwire, HP, and others join LTE patent pool

A group of wireless-industry companies -- including AT&T, Clearwire, and HP -- have agreed to a patent pool that could mean fewer lawsuits over the use of LTE technology, Via Licensing Corporation announced today.

The technology-licensing company said it hopes more companies will join the program. In addition to AT&T, Clearwire, and HP, the initial companies contributing their patents to the pool are DTVG Licensing, KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, and ZTE.

The LTE patents are so-called "frand," or standard-essential patents, which are technologies required to be licensed on "fair, … Read more

Samsung claims Apple patent verdict tainted by jury foreman

Samsung wants Apple's billion-dollar verdict thrown out, arguing it was tainted by the jury foreman's failure to disclose previous litigation with Seagate Technology, a company in which Samsung is a major investor.

Jury foreman Velvin Hogan was asked during jury selection about his involvement in lawsuits and should have revealed to the judge he had been sued by Seagate -- his former employer -- which led to his filing for personal bankruptcy in 1993, Samsung argued in a court filing Tuesday, according to a Bloomberg account.

"Samsung has a substantial strategic relationship with Seagate," the company … Read more

Motorola surprisingly withdraws Apple complaint from ITC

Motorola Mobility, a unit of Google, yesterday withdrew a complaint against Apple -- its second one -- from the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The complaint involved the infringement of seven non-essential standards patents that Motorola accused Apple of violating, according to Foss Patents, which first spotted the move.

It's a surprise move given the trend of escalating legal battles between Apple and its various opponents, from Samsung Electronics to Motorola.

What's surprising is Motorola just filed the complaint in August, and there isn't any reason given for the withdrawal. Two weeks ago, the ITC said it … Read more

Apple wireless adapter patent could resolve cable woes

A new patent granted to Apple could eliminate issues with incompatible cables and adapters should the technology ever appear in the real world.

The U.S. patent awarded today -- No. 8,280,465 -- describes the ways in which a wireless adapter could interface between a device and an accessory.

Such an adapter could include one wireless interface to talk to the device and a second wireless interface to talk to the accessory. The adapter would be able to handle different wireless protocols, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

"A user may encounter a situation where she has multiple … Read more

Apple hit by patent suit over Passbook

Apple is in the middle of another lawsuit, this one over charges that its Passbook app violates several patents of software developer Ameranth.

In the court document, Ameranth, which sells software and services to the hospitality and gaming industry, claims that Passbook violates four of its U.S. patents -- No. 6,384,850, No. 6,871,325, No. 6,982,733, and No. 8,146,077.

All four patents deal with "Information management and synchronous communications system." As such, they cover the ability to synchronize data among wired, wireless, and Web-based systems for electronic menus and reservations … Read more