patents

A federal judge has denied Samsung's request for dismissal of Apple's verdict and for a new trial based on allegations of jury misconduct, saying Samsung should have done more work during jury questioning.

In seeking to have Apple's $1 billion verdict arising from software patents on mobile devices overturned, the South Korean electronics giant argued 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, as well as an alleged bias made evident by statements made to the media after the verdict. … Read more

Neither Apple nor fellow defendant LG Electronics infringed on patents held by Alcatel-Lucent, a Southern California jury said today.

A jury in a federal court in San Diego reached its decision following a two-week patent trial, Bloomberg notes.

Multimedia Patent Trust, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, sued the two companies in December 2010 for alleged infringement on three of its patents covering video technology. The matter went to trial late last month.

The lawsuit targeted Apple's portable iOS devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, along with computers such as MacBooks and iMacs -- effectively, anything that included Apple'… Read more

Apple has lost a few rounds in a courtroom case pitting it against patent holder MobileMedia.

A U.S. court ruled today that the iPhone infringes on three patents held by MobileMedia, a spokesperson for the patent holder told CNET.

One of the patents, No. 6,427,078, refers to a camera phone technology, according to the spokesperson. The other two patents, No. 6,253,075 and No. 6,070,068, deal with call handling.

A document of the verdict posted on Scribd shows the jury found that Apple directly infringed on the three patents in question. The jury also … Read more

Amazon has been granted a patent for protecting gadgets from accidents by using tiny airbags and even jets of air.

The patent application made waves immediately after it was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last August. Amazon filed for it in February 2010 and was granted it today, Engadget notes.

At its core, the patent details a system that uses your gadget's built-in gyroscope, accelerometers, camera, and other onboard sensors to figure out if the device has gone airborne. If so, a system can keep the device from getting too badly damaged by changing its … Read more

Apple and Samsung's patent fight may have received the most attention about intellectual property litigants, but they were hardly the only ones. In fact, it may be easier to name big tech companies not engaged in a patent suit than it is to name the ones that have taken their intellectual property disputes the courtroom...or at least threatening to do so. The so-called balance of terror where big companies amass stockpiles of patents in order to discourage litigation turned into a legal free-for-all. Barely a day passed when a tech company, from Facebook to Microsoft, wasn't named … Read more

Patent trolls are for the first time behind the majority of patent infringement lawsuits filed in the United States, according to a study conducted by a patent law professor in California.

About 62 percent of all patent lawsuits filed this year up to December 1 were brought by patent assertion entities (PAEs), which are created to extract licensing fees from other companies rather than make products based on the patents, according to Colleen Chien, a law professor at Santa Clara University.

That's a dramatic increase over last year, when 45 percent of patent lawsuits were filed by trolls. In … Read more

As patent spats continue to command much of the tech world's attention and corporate resources, a group of prominent companies is taking a stand against a practice it sees as hobbling innovation.

Google, Facebook, Zynga and five other tech giants filed an amicus brief with the U.S. State Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday, asking the court to reject the patents central to a lawsuit between two financial institutions. CLS Bank has sued Alice Corp. for allegedly infringing on four patents covering a computerized method of having a third-party hold funds in escrow on behalf … Read more

Sometimes an invention comes along that makes you excited about the future.

For a long time, it seems that handcuffs have been stuck in the movies of old. They restrain you, but, odd for our interactive world, that's all they seem to do.

Might I tempt you toward futuristic handcuffs that will offer you a small involuntary judder?… Read more