Whatever your stance on the current state of patent law—it’s essential to protecting intellectual property, it’s detrimental to innovation, or something in between—the fact is that there’s a whole lot of patent-related activity happening in the tech sector right now, much of it to do with mobile devices.
Google’s …
Google dropped a bomb this morning by announcing that it will acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in cash. Motorola Mobility, which became independent from Motorola earlier this year, currently builds Android phones such as the Droid 3 and Android tablets such as the Motorola Xoom.
Android will remain open to other handset …
There’s a bunch of suited-up, nerdy middle-age dudes going at it again. I mean, the guys from Google and Microsoft.
Google published a blog post yesterday, basically accusing Apple, Oracle and Microsoft of waging a vicious campaign against Android using “bogus patents.” The post specifically mentions litigation practices and the …
Apple may be regretting letting iTunes and iPod users effortlessly skip back and forth through their playlists, having just been told by a Texas court that it’ll cost the company $8 million in damages for the ability to do so.
Apple’s payout comes after it lost a patent infringement case brought against it by a patent licensing …
Android’s smartphone dominance is turning out quite nicely for Microsoft.
Thanks to patent licensing agreements, Microsoft collects royalties from five Android vendors, including popular smartphone maker HTC, Networkworld reports. And now, Microsoft is rumored to be putting the squeeze on Samsung for even more royalties, to the tune …
I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m taking my iPhone out for a run (which happens four times a year) I’m more inclined to scroll through songs than actually, you know, move my legs. I know playlists are an option, but I’m really more of a “as the mood strikes” kind of guy, which probably explains why I can only listen to …
Apple today issued a strongly-worded legal smackdown to Lodsys, the so-called patent troll that issued its own legal threats to a handful of independent Apple iOS developers 10 days ago.
In a letter sent to Lodsys CEO Mike Small, copied to developers, and subsequently leaked to the entire internet, Apple’s Senior Vice President and …
Microsoft vs Barnes & Noble: Who Really Wins?
Microsoft didn’t hold back in its opening salvo:
“We have tried for over a year to reach licensing agreements with Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec. Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action to defend our innovations and fulfill our responsibility to
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Nikon has filed a patent in Japan for a built-in DSLR projector, which should come in handy should you be the type to always carry a blank wall in your camera bag. According to a Nikon Rumors report, the image will be projected through the eyepiece of the electronic viewfinder so that “two or more persons can see the reproduced image …
Look out, Twitter, it looks like the folks at VS Technologies are after you.
The small company alleges that the micro-blogging site is infringing on patent 6,408,309, which discloses “a method and system for creating an interactive virtual community of famous people.”
Hold on–Twitter is a virtual community of famous people? Now, …
Apple filed a patent back in January outlining an all-in-one iMac that would function as a standard mouse-and-keyboard computer when the screen was positioned at an upright angle and, when tilted toward the user, would turn into a touchscreen computer running in “a low-resolution input mode, such as a touch-based interface.”
In …
In response to Apple’s lawsuit from March, HTC has just released a press release stating that Apple is infringing on five of the Taiwanese-based company’s patents. HTC has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission asking for a dead stop on the importation of iPhones, iPods and iPads. It’s unclear which patents …
