patents

A U.S. federal judge presiding over the landmark patent lawsuit between Apple and Samsung may postpone a second Apple patent suit against Samsung until an appeals court renders a decision on the first.

Apple won a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung last year in a San Jose, Calif., trial, but U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected the iPhone maker's request for a permanent injunction against sales of offending Samsung devices. A separate lawsuit filed by Apple accuses Samsung of violating a group of patents, including one related to Siri voice search technology.

That second case is … Read more

Patent reforms passed last year don't go far enough to fully protect entrepreneurs from software patent holders who try to exploit them, President Barack Obama said today in his fourth annual appearance on YouTube following the State of the Union address.

"We passed some legislation last year, but it hasn't captured all the problems," Obama said during the Google+ Hangout, hosted on YouTube, in response to a question about what the government was doing to promote innovation -- and protect against what the questioner called "patent trolls."

"The folks that you're talking … Read more

Google said today that it had filed suit against British Telecom in the United States and the United Kingdom claiming patent infringement, just over a year after BT alleged that Google infringed on its intellectual property.

CNET reviewed the U.S. lawsuit, which alleges that BT infringes on four Google patents relating to the transfer of files within a network. The patents at stake in the U.S. suit were acquired by Google from companies including IBM and Fujitsu.

The new filing comes in the wake of BT's December 2011 lawsuit against Google, which alleged that the Mountain View … Read more

Apple wants to make a network out of physical objects so you can keep track of your things -- like your iPhone, keys, wallet-- or yourself.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has filed a patent for a "personal items network," that relies on movement-monitoring devices, according to a U.S. patent application published today.

The system would link items -- like a wallet, purse, personal data assistant, personal computer, watch, credit card, keys, and cell phone -- using sensors that can track and record changes in environment and condition. … Read more

As Apple and Samsung have proved, everyone has some kind of patent on something -- which means that everyone could, in theory, sue someone else for some other feature that seems blindingly similar to their own feature.

It all comes down to how much money you have, how good your lawyers are, and what moods judges and juries happen to be in.

When Facebook introduced the "Like" button, it seemed so thoroughly obvious that you couldn't believe someone hadn't thought of it before -- a 5-year-old in Bangalore, for example.

Now, a patent company called Rembrandt Social Media has decided it holds the patent for, well, liking things online and a few other aspects of Facebook.… Read more

As Apple's patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung drag on, it appears that not everyone in Apple brass was in favor of suing the South Korean electronics giant.

Tim Cook, who succeeded Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as chief executive after seven years as chief operating officer, was opposed to suing Samsung, mostly because of the company's role as a key supplier of components for the iPhone and iPad, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The Cupertino-based company was Samsung's biggest customer in 2011, reportedly buying some $8 billion worth of screens and chips.

After signing a … Read more

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This week on Crave, Japanese scientists teach moths to drive mini trucks, and a new app called Dognition claims to improve our relationship with man's best friend. Also, we decide if a $30 million Death Star Kickstarter campaign is worth it, and Montana is apparently full of badasses! Those stories and more, plus a round of "Into It, Not Into It." … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Hacker exposes George Bush's family photos, portraits.

Wait, so PS4 won't have better graphics?

- J.J. Abrams may direct a Portal and/or Half-Life movie!

- Snow panic has driven Weather.com completely insane.

- Patent troll says he owns "podcasting," sues Adam Corolla, HowStuffWorks.… Read more

An administrative law judge for the U.S. International Trade Commission has dismissed one of Nokia's nine patent infringement claims against HTC, patents blog Foss Patents reported today.

HTC argued that the patent, which deals with routing data to an app, is a standards-essential patent. ITC Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender agreed, dismissing the one complaint.

Standards-essential patents are ones that companies must offer to other companies on a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) basis. The idea is that fair licensing of intellectual property is needed for devices from different manufactures to work together properly. Most of the … Read more