motorola

Motorola Mobility has applied for a patent that would turn your mobile display into an acoustic device.

According to the patent application, which hit the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Web site yesterday, Motorola has developed a technology that would allow a mobile device's display to "produce a substantial usable audio area particularly for private and speakerphone mode conversations." In addition, the display would deliver haptic feedback when touched.

The invention could help Motorola Mobility, which is now a fully owned subsidiary of Google, to dramatically change how smartphones look and act, since as the … Read more

The judge overseeing Apple and Motorola's patent lawsuit has decided to grant Apple's request for an injunction hearing, Foss Patents reported today.

U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner has set the hearing for the patent infringement case over patents related to 3G capabilities for Wednesday in Chicago. Poser decided to cancel the case's jury trial last week because he didn't think either side was able to prove injury.

The judge's decision indicates that if Motorola wants to seek an injunction, it will need to "address the bearing of FRAND on the injunction analysis.&… Read more

IDC has updated its tablet forecast, raising Apple's iOS share at the expense of Android, while RIM's Blackberry fades to irrelevance.

IDC now expects iOS to grab 62.5 percent of the tablet market in 2012, up from 58.2 percent in 2011. Meanwhile, Android's share will slip to 36.5 percent from 38.7 percent in 2011.

And where does that leave BlackBerry? Virtually nowhere. RIM's tablet platform fades to 1 percent of the market in 2012, down from an already-tiny 1.7 percent share in 2011.

The market researcher is not currently forecasting Windows 8 or Windows RT tablets … Read more

commentary We need more judges like U.S. Circuit Court Judge Richard Posner.

Yesterday, Posner scrapped a trial between Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility slated to start in Chicago next week after he rejected the arguments for damages because neither side was able to prove it was harmed.

The move is a welcome breath of practicality in this increasingly muddled and litigious world of technology patent warfare. Beyond competing in the market, technology players have moved to the courtroom as a second front, using patents to distract competitors and even ban products from coming into the country.

While these … Read more

A judge ruled today that Apple and Motorola won't be able to duke it out just yet, Bloomberg reports.

Apple's patent infringement jury trial against Google's Motorola Mobility was scheduled for June 11, but U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner told the companies' attorneys he is rejecting arguments for damages because neither side was able to "prove injury."

This would have been the first patent trial between the two companies since Google acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion last month, although Apple and Moto have been sparring for quite a while. Motorola claims that … Read more

Google's efforts to block imports of Microsoft's Xbox and Apple's iPhone could cause "substantial harm" to consumers, competition, and innovation, the Federal Trade Commission said in a letter today.

The letter -- addressed to the U.S. International Trade Commission, a federal agency with the power to enforce bans on products shipping to the U.S. -- suggested companies should be limited in their ability to block competitors' imports based on patents that are built into industry standards.

"Simply put, we are concerned that a patentee can make a RAND [reasonable and nondiscriminatory] commitment … Read more

The patent-infringement dispute between Microsoft and Motorola Mobility is expected to go to trial after a federal judge today rejected motions for summary dissolution filed by both companies.

The case, in which Microsoft accuses Motorola of unfairly seeking excessive royalty payments for patents used in several of the software giant's products, is now scheduled to go to trial in November, according to a Seattle Times report. The Motorola patents in question cover video streaming and Wi-Fi technology that Microsoft uses in Windows and the Xbox.

Today's ruling was in line with comments made in May by U.S. … Read more

A few weeks ago, we reported that two Verizon products, the Motorola Xoom and the HTC Rezound, would soon be slated for an Android 4.0 update. Lo and behold, it's happening -- at least for the Xoom anyway.

Customers on the Big Red are now able to update their tablets (which won our CES Best of Show title in 2011) to the Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

New features include the Roboto system font, panoramic shooting, e-mail search, the capability to save Web pages for offline reading, and a photo editor integrated in the Gallery app.

In addition, … Read more

Motorola now has only one patent left to stand on in its ongoing infringement case with Apple.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Posner ruled in Apple's favor yesterday by dismissing Motorola's U.S. Patent No. 6,175,559.

Described in tech terms as a "method for generating preamble sequences in a code division multiple access system," the patent was seen by Motorola as essential to the company's 3G (UMTS) standard, according to Foss Patents' Florian Mueller.

But Apple had argued otherwise, and Posner agreed that the patent should be thrown out. The removal doesn'… Read more