Apple’s legal battles have been quietly continuing in the U.S. even after their landmark $1 Billion win over Samsung a few months ago. Apple is currently trying to fight patent claims lobbied against it by Motorola Mobility which is now owned by Google.
With five days to go before their contract trial starts in Wisconsin, Apple formally declared to the court that it will be willing to pay a licensing fee to Motorola Mobility as long as the license is $1 or less per iPhone sold.
Apple’s overactive approach to defending its patents may sometimes make it look like one of the industry’s biggest bullies, but you may be surprised to hear that the Cupertino used to patent hardly anything. In fact, it only began patenting its inventions after years of patent suit losses, one of which saw the company fined $100 million for creating the iPod.
Since I’m sure you all stay awake at night worrying about the latest developments in ITC complaints and patent disputes, you’re all probably dying to know that Motorola has withdrawn a complaint it made against Apple back in mid-August. We have absolutely no idea why the sudden change of heart, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. The web is abuzz with theories, but the truth is most likely much less controversial.
Companies like Google and Samsung aren’t exactly known for making the best anti-Apple propaganda, but the latest attack ad from Motorola has a particularly painful amount of truth to it. Everyone knows that Apple’s Maps app in iOS 6 sucks right now, and competitors are obviously going to latch onto any negative Apple press they can. That’s why Motorola’s ad says that the “DROID RAZRM M” (serious name) promises to not get you “iLost.”
While most of these Android ads have been pathetic attempts at calling out the iPhone’s flaws, I can’t really fault Motorola (who is owned by Google) for going with the Maps angle. It’s no surprise that none of the recent iPhone 5 ads mention Maps at all. If Apple doesn’t fix the negative inertia its generated with Maps in iOS 6, it could have a serious PR problem on its hands.
To Apple’s credit, iOS 6 Maps is being compared to Google Maps, a decade-old, matured platform that Google has invested thousands upon thousands of man hours into. Apple’s Maps will get there, it’s just going to take a little time.
Source: Android Central
Motorola is looking to bring down the ban hammer on almost every Apple product out there, including every Mac OSX computer. I have no idea if Motorola is just looking to throw spaghetti at the wall or what, but they have a long list of infringements that apparently the International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate.
If you are one of the many who were holding off on buying a new smartphone until after Apple unveiled the iPhone 5, it’s now time to make a decision. You’ve seen what the iPhone 5 has to offer and now it’s time to compare it to what’s available on Android. I’ll show you a few options, how they compare to the iPhone 5, and then you can decide what’s the best option for you. Ready to explore?
When Apple announces the iPhone 5 next week, its features and specifications will be of little surprise to most of us. If you’ve been following the rumors, there’s a good chance you already know what it looks like, and most of what’s inside it. But will the iPhone 5 been right for you, and does it do enough to keep you devoted to iOS?
There are some pretty great smartphones out there right now, including a handful that were announced by Nokia and Motorola just this week — the Lumia 820 and Lumia 920, and the DROID RAZR HD, DROID RAZR MAXX HD, and DROID RAZR M. So how do you choose between them? Well, we’ve put together a handy chart that will help you establish which smartphone is right for you.
While Samsung has been battling with Apple in the U.S., Motorola has been trying to win a few court cases of their own against Apple over in Germany. The two sides have mostly been arguing over some standard-essential patents that Apple needs for the iPhone to work.
Until now, Motorola has refused to license the patents to Apple at a fair price, but a recent court filing shows that Motorola has declared a ceasefire and will now license some, if not all, of their standard-essential patents to Apple.
Today, Bloomberg reports that Google’s Motorola Mobility unit has filed a new case against Apple with the International Trade Commission (ITC). In the claim, Google asserts that seven of Motorola’s patents have been infringed by the Cupertino-based company.
The patents Google is claiming in the case include location-based reminders, email notification, and video players, oddly enough. The suit itself seeks a ban on US imports of devices like the iPhone and iPad as well as Mac computers, all of which are manufactured out of the US, in China.
After two weeks of Apple laying down their evidence that Samsung has violated their patents and completely ripped-off the iPhone and iPad, Samsung is now going on the defensive in the Apple vs Samsung trial. So far, Samsung’s biggest strategic defense has been to flip the trial around and claim that Apple has infringed on their standard essential patents.
To help their case, Samsung has listed two expert witnesses to justify their claims that Apple should pay up to 2.5% in royalties. One of the experts – David J. Teece, a professor at the University of California, Berkley, was recently used by Motorola in their case against Microsoft related to H.264 patents.
This isn’t the smallest headset. In fact, Motorola’s Elite Sliver Bluetooth Headset ($130) is actually bulkier than many other personal BT headsets. Its trick, though, is to hide most of the bulk behind the user’s ear, leaving just a sliver — hence the name — of technology visbile.
But the Sliver isn’t just a one-trick pony; its case also doubles as a battery that will top off the Sliver when the headset is housed in the case (which actually does triple duty as a charger).
Another day, another patent infringement story. Today, HTC brought a couple of counterclaims against Apple in Florida over two patents it bought from HP last December.
The case they’re asserting the claims in is one that started in 2010, with a Motorola lawsuit against Apple. Six of the twelve Apple counterclaims in that lawsuit also concerned HTC. While HTC motioned to transfer the case out of Miami, they had to respond to those counterclaims. They did so by filing their own counterclaims.
Apple attorneys are surely enjoying the latest ruling in the patent case involving Google’s Motorola Mobility unit, which grants Apple the chance of making its case via an injunction. The judge’s order yesterday is one last chance for both parties to plead the case to continue to trial, a trial that was canceled by Judge Richard Posner last week, with the judge ruling that neither party could prove damages.
Despite disapproval from its rivals, Apple’s new 4FF nano-SIM format has been approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) this morning, edging out other proposals from the likes of Motorola, Nokia, and Research in Motion. The new card is said to be 40% smaller than existing micro-SIM cards, but it offers all of the same functionality.
AT&T is one of 48 carriers worldwide which have a network vulnerability that allows hackers to intercept cellular data and inject malicious content into the traffic that passes between smartphones and the websites they visit. The flaw can be used to transfer code to unencrypted pages which causes a user to perform unintended actions, like sending messages or friend requests from Facebook and Twitter. And your iPhone may be vulnerable.
Apple has lost an appeal against a court ruling in Germany to have its iCloud push services restored. The service was disabled back in February after it was ruled that Apple had infringed on patents owned by Motorola Mobility. While iCloud is still available, users now have to open up their Mail app and fetch new email manually, or set their device to fetch email at certain intervals.
It was revealed last week that Apple is pushing to make its new nano-SIM the next industry standard for miniaturized SIM cards. The company has the backing of most European mobile operators, but rival smartphone vendors — particularly Motorola, RIM, and Nokia — are against the idea.
In a bid to win them over, Apple has promised that it will make nano-SIM licensing free if its proposal is approved.
Not satisfied with your iPhone’s screen size? Want Apple to come out with an iPhone to rival the Galaxy Nexus’ screen? Maybe even the Samsung Galaxy Note?
Cartoonist Leslie Wood gives us a humorous take on what the future of smartphones holds for mankind:
In a move that would surely have Steve Jobs — the man willing to go thermonuclear war against Android — rolling over in his grave, Apple has apparently offered licensing deals to Samsung and Motorola in an attempt to settle ongoing and future patent suits. According to sources speaking with Dow Jones Newswires, Apple has offered licensing deals in the tune of $5 to $15 per device or the equivalent of 1% to 2.5% of net sales per device. Interestingly enough, these fees are on par with what Apple deemed “unreasonable” after attempts to license patents from Motorola.
The patent saga continues with U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner in Chicago ruling that Motorola and Google must provide Apple with information regarding Android development as well as information about the impending merger. It’s unclear exactly what specific “information” must be provided and while everyone goes ahead and assumes it’s some sort of top secret documentation, I’m betting it’s nothing of the sort and Apple won’t be gaining any trade secrets out of this. It’s all ridiculous and will only end as all of these patent suits have ended, with nothing more than a software update.
Germany has become quite the hotbed for patent lawsuits lately as it’s been in the spotlight for the Apple vs Motorola Mobility legal battle. As the legal war rages on, a new ruling has found that Motorola did indeed violate Apple’s EU Patent No. EP2059868 on a “portable electronic device for photo management”. The patent in question basically fixes over scrolling by bouncing the user back a bit once they’ve zoomed in too far, and even though this patent is software specific, it may have repercussions on Motorola’s hardware if they don’t come up with a fix quickly.
The latest ruling to come out of the ridiculous patent game comes in favor of Apple and awards them an injunction on Motorola Android products found to infringe on an Apple patent regarding scrolling behavior in the photo gallery application. What does this ruling actually mean for German users? Nothing really. Motorola will simply push an update to change the scrolling behavior and that will be the end of that. Will German Motorola users notice the change? Most likely not. So what was the point? The same point of everything that involves lawyers — money.
While Siri seems to get all the attention when it comes to voice actions, Motorola wants to remind people that Android not only does voice actions, but does them extremely well, if not better. At least that’s the message we’re getting out of Motorola’s latest campaign pitting Android’s voice actions against its top contender Siri. Motorola runs through a slew of voice action challenges using three different Motorola phones and the results are impressive. I’m blown away by how fast both OS’s perform the tasks given and it’s an excellent reminder of the fact that Android has been perfecting voice actions for quite some time. I’m betting there are a lot of you that didn’t even realize your phone could do the things your about to see. Check out the videos after the break.
Although the war will rage on for a few more years, Apple just scored a major victory in their legal war with Motorola Mobility in Germany. In December 2011 Apple lost a preliminary injunction with Motorola and faced the possibility of having their 3G-enabled products, like the iPad and iPhone, barred from Germany. However, a recent decision by the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court has ruled that Motorola can not enforce their injunction against Apple while the appeals process is underway, meaning Apple is free to sell their products in Germany until the appeal has been resolved.
The year’s biggest phone expo is about to kick off in Barcelona, Spain. The Mobile World Congress always seems to have an unofficial theme. Last year it was non-Apple tablets and bad 3-D. In 2010 it was Windows Phone 7.
This year? This year looks set to be all about the Phablets. And Cult of Mac is going to be there first-hand to laugh at report on them.