patents

Apple wants to let you know when to buy new shoes

Hold the phone -- Apple wants to let you know when it's time to buy your next pair of shoes.

In a recently published patent application, the tech giant has proposed embedding sensors in footwear that would track the wearer's activity and send a notification when it's time for a new pair. The application describes a "Shoe wear-out sensor, body-bar sensing system, unitless activity assessment and associated methods."

The application's summary describes the system thus:

A body bar sensing system for sensing movement of a body bar may be provided. The body bar sensing … Read more

ITC decides to review Apple complaint against Samsung

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) decided yesterday to review a ruling made by an administrative law judge in the ongoing patent-infringement saga between Apple and Samsung.

Judge Thomas Pender in October ruled that Samsung had violated one of Apple's iPhone design patents, as well as three software feature patents, in some of its mobile products. Two other patents brought before the judge by Apple were found to have not been violated by Samsung.

In a memo published yesterday (PDF), the ITC announced that it will review the ruling passed down by Judge Pender. The organization said that … Read more

Steve Jobs threatened Palm with patents over no-poaching deal, says court filing

Steve Jobs threatened Palm with a patent lawsuit if the company didn't agree to a deal with Apple whereby neither company would poach the other's workers, according to a legal filing made public today that quotes former Palm CEO Edward Colligan.

The filing, a civil lawsuit brought by five tech workers against Apple, Google, and others that alleges the companies plotted to drive down wages, includes the following sworn statement from Colligan:

"In 2007, I received a call from Steve Jobs, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple. In the months before the call, several employees had moved … Read more

Intellectual Ventures settles patent lawsuit with Microsemi

Patent holding company Intellectual Ventures announced today it had resolved its long-running patent infringement litigation with chipmaker Microsemi.

The settlement dispenses with all patent litigation between the two and makes Microsemi a licensee of segments of Intellectual Ventures' massive patent portfolio. Financial terms of the settlement were not revealed.

Microsemi was one of a handful of companies sued for patent infringement in 2010 by Intellectual Ventures, a patent holder co-founded by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's former chief technology officer. Altera and Lattice Semiconductor, other makers of FPGA (field-programmable gate array) logic chips, were also accused of infringing up to five … Read more

Apple, Samsung add new devices to upcoming patent suit

A slew of new devices have been tacked onto the patent lawsuit in a legal order that was jointly filed by Apple and Samsung today. Included in the devices are Apple's iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S III.

U.S. Judge Paul Grewal agreed to let both companies add devices to the case, which is scheduled to go to trial on March 31, 2014. The order includes both Apple and Samsung's amended stipulations to their original filings, which are part of Apple's Galaxy Nexus case and not the patent trial between the two companies that ended last August. … Read more

SurfCast and Microsoft prep for September 3 'live tile' trial

Later this year, a handful of bankers and former IBM executives from tiny SurfCast could square off against Microsoft in the U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine, in a patent dispute where potentially hundreds of millions of dollars would be at stake.

On October 30, 2012, SurfCast filed a complaint alleging that Microsoft's use of dynamically updating "live" tiles in its Windows 8 user interface infringes on SurfCast's U.S. patent. Since the filing of the suit, the two parties have been in discovery in anticipation of a September 3, 2013, trial date.

The … Read more

iPad hasn't cornered market on round corners, says Dutch court

Samsung's Galaxy tablets do not infringe Apple's design patents relating to the iPad, a court in the Netherlands ruled today.

In a judgment handed down by a district court in The Hague, the court found that the rounded corners of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, 8.9, and 7.7 did not infringe the patents held by Apple, citing a similar case in the British courts last year, which also found in favor of Samsung.

In a statement given to the Reuters news agency, Samsung said: "We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to … Read more

Apple wins six design patents in Hong Kong for iOS icons

Apple has been awarded a handful of patents in Hong Kong for the design of its iOS icons.

The company applied for the design patents in June 2012, according to registration documents obtained by Patently Apple. The design patents were awarded by officials in Hong Kong on Friday. According to an image included in the patent application, Apple won design awards for its Siri icon, iMessage, and Notes, among others. It won a total of six design patents.

Apple has been very protective over its icon designs in the past. Last year, in fact, Apple alleged in its ongoing lawsuit … Read more

Judge OKs $527 million Kodak patent sale

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in Manhattan put his imprimatur earlier today on a previously announced deal allowing Eastman Kodak to sell $527 million worth of imaging patents to a group of technology companies. The list includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Facebook, Research In Motion, and Samsung Electronics.

The patent sale is part of Kodak's strategy to emerge from bankruptcy. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in January 2012. A stipulation of a $950 million loan it received from Citigroup to remain afloat required it to sell off some of its intellectual property. However, the final … Read more

Microsoft patent would make smartphones less annoying

Microsoft is trying to patent a technology that could tone down the brightness and noise of smartphones, with an eye toward reducing the nuisance factor in public places.

Published yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the application for the patent dubbed "Inconspicuous Mode For Mobile Devices" defines a method to shift a smartphone into an "inconspicuous" mode, either manually or automatically.

In this mode, the brightness and contrast would be dimmed while the audio would be disabled. The information appearing on the home screen could also be minimized to dampen the display.

The … Read more