patent

This e-mail will self-destruct in five seconds

Ever lose sleep over e-mails you've sent? Messages of an embarrassing nature that make you wish you hadn't clicked on "send"?

AT&T is thinking of you. It applied for a patent for self-deleting e-mail. Once sent, these missives won't hang around in some inbox waiting for someone to do what he pleases with them. They'll disintegrate, so to speak.

"Method, System, and Apparatus for Providing Self-Destructing Electronic Mail Messages" is U.S. patent application number 20130159436 and was recently made public. … Read more

Samsung scores another win versus Apple, this time in Japan

Score one for Samsung in the company's long-running patent battles with Apple.

A Japanese high court upheld a lower court ruling that Samsung did not infringe on an Apple patent related to synchronizing music and video on Galaxy smartphones and tablets with servers, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The Intellectual Property High Court in Tokyo backed an August decision by Tokyo District Court that Samsung's mobile devices don't infringe on Apple technology. Following that ruling, Apple filed paperwork in October to appeal the decision.

Samsung gave us the following statement:

We welcome the court's decision, … Read more

Samsung eyes settlement in EU antitrust inquiry -- report

Samsung is inclined to wave the white flag in its issues with European Union antitrust regulators rather than take the chance of fighting it out, according to a new report.

Samsung and the European Union's European Commission, which regulates corporate competition, are in preliminary talks to settle an investigation into the company's use of essential mobile patents, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing people who claim to have knowledge of those talks.

The European Commission has been investigating Samsung over its use of standard-essential patents in its lawsuits against Apple across the EU. Samsung holds essential patents on the 3G … Read more

ITC launches pilot program to cut down on patent troll suits

The International Trade Commission is looking to curb the amount of cases it gets from patent trolls.

According to Reuters, the commission said Monday that it plans to start requiring companies to prove they are well established in the U.S. before they file patent infringement complaints. Currently, companies don't have to prove this until after the case is over.

This requirement will come via a pilot program launched by the ITC that is led by its six administrative judges. These judges will determine whether companies suing over patent infringements have sufficient U.S. production, licensing, and research to … Read more

Apple's patent win over Mirror Worlds stays intact

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear Mirror Worlds' appeal of an Apple victory in a patent case, putting to rest the long-running dispute.

The nation's highest court said on its site that it has denied Mirror World's request that it consider the case related to software patents for features such as Apple's Cover Flow.

Mirror Worlds was founded by Yale University computer-science Professor David Gelernter. In a 2008 lawsuit, the company accused Apple of infringing on its patents with its Mac OS X operating systems going back to 10.4 "Tiger," … Read more

Apple wins patent case against Samsung in Japan

A Tokyo court has ruled that Samsung infringed on Apple's patent covering a "bounce-back" feature used on the latter's smartphones and tablets.

Reuters reported Friday that Apple had alleged Samsung copied its "bounce-back" function, in which icons on smartphones and tablets quiver back when users scroll to the end of an electronic document. Samsung has already changed its interface on recent models to show a blue line at the end of documents, the report noted.

The court's decision comes after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in April said Apple's patent … Read more

FTC reportedly planning sweeping probe of patent trolls

The chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission is expected Thursday to propose a sweeping inquiry into companies created to extract licensing fees from other companies rather than make products based on their patents, according to The New York Times.

FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez will ask the full commission to support a proposal for an investigation that would include subpoenaing patent assertion entities (PAE), also known as patent trolls, the Times reports. The move comes after the Obama administration announced a set of executive actions earlier this month aimed at reining in certain PAEs amid concerns they are abusing the current … Read more

Apple eyes better iPad gaming with joystick controller patent

Apple is eyeing a better way to play on its toys.

Dubbed "Clickable and tactile buttons for a touch surface," a patent published Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office envisions a gamepad and joystick for iOS devices.

Mobile gaming is a surging area of growth, something puttting console makers ill at ease. Last year an NPD Group report found that games for mobile devices account for almost half of all game downloads.

The patent describes accessories that simply stick on the touchscreen of an iPad display and engage the touch-sensitive areas with buttons and a … Read more

Motorola settles DVR patent infringement suit with TiVo

Motorola has settled a patent-infringement lawsuit with TiVo over digital-video recording technology ahead of a patent trial scheduled to begin next week.

TiVo filed a patent-infringement claim against Motorola last October, saying that the Google-owned company's set-top boxes infringed on its patents related to DVR functionality. TiVo argued that were the court to rule in its favor, the "damages claim is likely to run into the billions of dollars."

The settlement, which was first reported by Bloomberg, was confirmed by a Motorola spokesperson, who declined to offer details of the settlement.

"We're pleased that all … Read more