patents

Motorola devices sparse in Germany amid patent wars

Motorola Mobility's market in Germany may be shrinking even further.

The company continues to offer few devices via its German Web site as it battles Microsoft over patent issues, according to Foss Patents' Florian Mueller. Mueller has been employed as a paid consultant by Microsoft and Oracle.

A check of Motorola's German Web pages by blog site Areamobile found only three smartphones currently up for sale -- the Razr, the Razr i, and the Gleam HD +.

A search by Mueller turned up the same results, with no other phones or tablets available online for German customers. A link … Read more

Samsung tries to patent the story of your life

We all love ourselves so much these days that everything we do takes on the piquancy of deep significance.

We need to share as much of it as we can. We need to tell as many people as we can -- even if we don't know them.

So Samsung, in what can only be an attack of heightened public service, has determined that all of your activity through your cell phone should be recorded and presented to you as a beautiful tale.

I am grateful to Engadget for noticing this patent application titled: "Apparatus and Method for Generating … Read more

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