patents

Judge chastises Apple, Google over patent litigation

Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility are doing everything they can to keep their patent litigation going, a district court judge has charged.

In an order released earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Scola said that he believes Apple and Motorola "have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end." According to Bloomberg, which was first to report on the ruling, Scola said that the companies are not properly using the court's time and … Read more

Apple requests $85M damages against Samsung be reinstated

Contending that the judge presiding over its patent lawsuit against Samsung erred, Apple has asked that $85 million in dismissed damages be reinstated.

In a March ruling in the landmark case, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh cut damages on some Samsung products found to infringe Apple's patents, carving $450.5 million off the original $1.05 billion judgment and calling for a new trial on the damages to recalculate them. However, Apple has complained that Koh made a mistake in reducing at least part of the damages by excluding two devices.

In an effort to get those … Read more

Patent trolls launched majority of U.S. patent cases in 2012

It's hip to be litigious.

In case the spat between Apple and Samsung, and myriad other tussles between tech giants weren't proof enough, comes a new study that says lawsuits filed by patent trolls last year made up the majority of patent-related complaints filed in the U.S.

The study, which was published by UC Hastings and Lex Machina this morning, analyzed about 13,000 cases spanning some 30,000 patents. It's a follow-up to last October's look at some 100 lawsuits, which found that lawsuits from patent firms were up 22 percent in the past … Read more

Apple eyes way to automatically copy files between devices

You may eventually be able to transfer files between a computer and mobile device just by placing the two near each other.

Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an Apple patent application known as "Apparatus and method for interacting with handheld carrier hosting media content," describes a file transfer technology that automatically kicks in when two devices are positioned next to each other. One device would sense when the other is nearby and then send or receive a certain document, picture, song, or other item.

As one example, you may be creating an e-mail … Read more

Unified Patents, backed by Google, takes fight to patent trolls

A new front has been opened in the ongoing battle between patent trolls and their targets.

A startup, called Unified Patents and formed by former Intuit intellectual property litigation chief Kevin Jakel, attempts to take aim at companies that collect patents and target other businesses for licensing fees or lawsuits. Unified Patents, which made its presence known in a Wall Street Journal profile yesterday, believes that it can achieve its goal by showing strength in numbers. It's currently in the process of recruiting several companies to join the organization and the fight.

According to the Journal, Unified Patents has … Read more

ITC says Samsung text-selection feature infringes Apple patent

A U.S. trade agency judge has decided the text-selection feature Samsung has on its mobile devices infringes an Apple patent. If upheld, the ruling could stop Samsung from sending devices to the United States.

The International Trade Commission judge also decided that Samsung did not infringe on the Apple patent that covers how a device detects if a microphone or other device is plugged in to its microphone jack, Reuters reported.

If the commission agrees with the judge on the text-selection issue, the ITC can stop Samsung from importing the several infringing products, including the Galaxy, Transform, and Nexus … Read more

Google lobbies against patent privateering

Google has banded together with BlackBerry, EarthLink, and Red Hat in an effort to expose the deleterious, industrywide consequences of patent privateering, or the practice of companies outsourcing patent enforcement to independent legal-happy entities with no technologies of their own.

The Mountain View, Calif., company, in conjunction with the others, submitted its comments -- more like grave concerns -- on the practice in a note to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. The companies assert that patent transfers to patent assertion entities (PAEs), aka patent trolls, undermine patent peace, and Google et al are pushing the government … Read more

Rackspace fights back with suit against 'notorious' patent troll

Fed up with patent trolls, Rackspace is going on the offensive.

After successfully defending itself from a patent infringement lawsuit over Linux, the Texas-based cloud infrastructure service provider says it filed a lawsuit today against Parallel Iron and IP Nav, a patent assertion entity (PAE) that Rackspace calls "the most notorious patent troll in America."

Commonly referred to as patent trolls, PAEs are created to extract licensing fees from other companies rather than make products based on the patents.

In a blog post today, Rackspace said Parallel Iron sued it and 11 other defendants in Delaware last week … Read more

German court invalidates Apple slide-to-unlock patent

In a legal victory for Google and Samsung, a German court has reportedly invalidated all patent claims related to Apple's "slide to unlock" user interface.

Today's ruling by Bundespatentgericht, Germany's federal patent court, is a setback for Apple, which has pressed the patent against Google's Motorola and Samsung in courts across Europe in attempts to secure injunctions preventing the companies' devices from being sold. However, the decision is appealable, according to Foss Patents blogger Florian Mueller, a paid consultant for several tech companies who was first to report on today's ruling.

The ruling, … Read more