patents - page 17

When a company like Apple is getting sued every other week, there’s no telling what they will and won’t try to patent and trademark in an attempt to protect their intellectual property. Apple already holds a patent on rectangles with rounded corners, and their latest trademark gives Apple exclusive use of the word “Retina.”

On December 4, 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple two Registered Trademarks. One trademark covers the word “Retina” while the second trademark covers Apple’s Game Center icon.

Just over a week ago, Apple and HTC decided to end their patent disputes with a 10-year cross-licensing agreement. The specifics of the agreement were not disclosed, and as with all things that aren’t disclosed, it lead to rampant rumor mongering.

The thermonuclear patent war may have a silver lining under its mushroom cloud thanks to some recent talks between Apple and Google’s Motorola Mobility. It appears the two companies are seriously considering putting and end to their global patent disputes via arbitration.

Last year, Apple joined forces with Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Sony to form the “Rockstar Bidco consortium,” which outbid Google for more than 6,000 Nortel patents covering wireless and LTE technologies. Together, the consortium paid $4.5 billion for the portfolio, most of which — around $2.6 billion — came from Apple.

However, the Cupertino company has reportedly been quietly handing over more cash to secure sole ownership of select patents.

Today, both Apple and Samsung were given the go ahead to include newer devices in their continuing legal battle over mobile smartphone and tablet supremacy, raising the stakes between the two tech giants. Samsung was granted the ability to include the iPhone 5 in its lawsuit against Cupertino-based Apple.

According to the Wall Street Journal, US Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal accepted Samsung’s revised request, thus allowing the company to attempt to prove infringement against Apple’s newest iPhone, a course of action the Korea-based company announced soon after its own defeat in the case against Samsung by Apple last month.

The jude also accepted Apple’s request to amend its own infringement lawsuit against Samsung to include newer products, including the Galaxy Note 10.1, the Galaxy S III, and the Jelly Bean Android Operating System.

To say Samsung and Apple have a strained relationship would be quite the understatement. A once symbiotic partnership has turned into an all out war over claims of patent infringement and design copying. Their global legal battles have disgusted enough judges and consumers to spawn serious debate over the current status of our patent system and a call for reform.

After years of battling in courtrooms around the world, Apple and HTC have reached an agreement over patent licensing that will be in effect for the next 10 years. Both companies have spent millions of dollars in ongoing lawsuits relating specifically to smartphone patents for the iPhone and HTC’s Android devices.

HTC was sued first by Apple back in 2010 with more than a dozen iPhone-related patents, and HTC then sued Apple a year later with infringement claims relating to not only the iPhone, but also the iPad and Mac.

Apple’s joint press release with HTC today announces the end of a long and tedious battle over patent litigation:

A couple of days ago, Cult of Mac reported that Apple had been successfully sued by an internet security software company, resulting in a $368.2 million damages award due the patent holders. Apparently, that award sum just wasn’t enough, as VirnetX has filed another complaint, claiming that Apple willfully infringed four patents.

As if another suit isn’t enough of a craziness, these are the same exact patents that were involved in the first suit. This time, the suing company says, they complaint includes the iPhone 5, the iPad mini, and the latest iPod touch, products that were not yet released when the initial complaint was filed.

Apple may have just launched the EarPods, undoubtedly the Cupertino company’s best earphones yet, but it’s already hard at working on something better. In a new patent filing, Apple demonstrates its work towards a new set of headphones that would have built-in loudspeakers. The design allows you to quickly switch between headphones for personal use, and a set of speakers for sharing your favorite tracks with your friends.

A federal jury in Texas has ordered Apple to pay patent holding firm (“patent troll”) VirnetX $368 million for a patent-infringement complaint. Following its success, VirnetX is now working to get Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and Mac products banned.

Thankfully, it’s been some time since I’ve written about an Apple patent lawsuit, however, that doesn’t mean they’ve magically disappeared. The latest in Apple’s crusade against Google (via Motorola Mobility), leads us to a U.S. District Court in Madison, Wisconsin. Apple was slated to go up against Motorola Mobility with allegations of unfair licensing practices, however, Judge Barbara Crabb has dismissed Apple’s lawsuit with prejudice — meaning the case is over at the trial court level.

Earlier today, Cult of Mac reported a Dutch ruling that found Samsung didn’t infringe on an Apple patent for multi-touch tech.

Later today, then, a judge with the US International Trade Commission, or ITC, filed an initial determination that said that Samsung is actually in violation of one of Apple’s iPhone design patents, as well as three other software patents. Two other claims were found not to be infringement.

Apple has just lost one of its magic patent bullets thanks to a non-final Office action by the USPTO. Patent No, 7,469,381 (used against Samsung in California) has been declared invalid after evidence supporting prior art (as well as being obvious) was brought about during a reexamination request.

This news is not only great for Samsung, but many other manufacturers who are currently caught up in Apple’s legal charades.

US District Court Judge Lucy Koh today denied Apple’s request to have several documents sealed from public view in its fight to recoup more damages from Samsung than were even awarded by the jury several weeks ago. The documents include “product-specific unit sales, revenue, profit, profit margin, and cost data” that it also wants to use in its argument for a higher award from the court.

Judge Koh basically said that Apple can’t have it both ways. Her decision says to the Cupertino-based company that it can’t use documents in its arguments that it then in turn wants to keep secret. It just doesn’t work that way.

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.

As Apple patents go, it’s not always easy to tell which ideas will make their way out of Cupertino in future devices, and which will be written off. But I’m guessing this one falls into that last category. Published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on Thursday, this patent covers a new feature, which could one day make its way into iOS, that would demand users change print settings by shaking their device.

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.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent that covers its controversial iTunes logo that first made its debut with iTunes 10 in September 2010. The company’s late co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs is credited as one of the logo’s designers, and the patent covering its design first filed for in October last year.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt is currently on a tour of Asia, where he announced the company’s $199 Nexus 7 tablet in Tokyo on Monday. During his announcement, Schmidt found some time to talk about Apple and its patent wars against other companies. Schmidt revealed that while Apple is a “very good partner,” he doesn’t agree with patent wars, and feels they “prevent choice” and innovation.

Last quarter, courts around the world had filed judgements that showed Android infringing 11 mostly Apple patents, with a couple of Microsoft patents thrown in for good measure. As of today, according to Florian Meuller of FOSS Patents, there are 17 patent judgements against the Android operating system, four in favor of Microsoft, and a staggering 13 favoring Apple.

These judicial decisions only include final judgements, and do not include those where a judgement was made, but the injunction lifted by another court or judge. They include both courts and the International Trade Commission, a body with quasi-judicial authority in world trade agreements.

Almost everything Apple creates is patented and trademarked in an effort to ensure that other companies can’t steal its ideas (though they do). However, sometimes the folks in Cupertino hit a stumbling block. That’s what happened when Apple attempted to trademark its Music app icon recently, only to find that Myspace got there first.

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.

Check out the image above, and then marvel that Samsung put this together for the court case it lost to Apple a couple weeks back in US District Court. Judge Lucy Koh understandably excluded the slide from Samsung’s final argument documents – these comparisons have nothing to do with the actual merits of the case, but rather show that Apple was asking for a lot of money in damages.

Regardless of the facts, though, this image is pretty hilarious. It does show what a crazy amount of money companies are taking in and/or losing in our current “touch economic times,” rendering the phrase meaningless when set next to these kinds of figures.

Add another mark in the “winning” column for Apple today, as a judge from the US branch of the International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that Apple did not infringe any of the four patents brought before the commission by Samsung.

Judge James Gildea posted his ruling in a short notice on the court’s website. He also found that Samsung was unable to prove that it had a “domestic industry” that used the patents in question. This last bit has to do with a requirement of the ITC that the patents being brought before the court must actually be used in the same country as that court. This ruling is preliminary; the full ITC panel will review the ruling early next year.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I was making this up, but unfortunately I’m not. Apple’s patent crusade has taken a new low. They’ve actually filed a lawsuit against an online Polish grocery site, claiming they are trying to confuse customers with their trademarked A.pl. The companies full name is A.PL CompanyInternet SA and the .pl is actually Poland’s country-wide domain. However, Apple believes this site-to-door grocery delivery site is simply trying to profit off of their almighty reputation.