Amazon has taken the next great leap in competition with Apple. Jeff Bezos and company, not resting with their Kindle Fire bargain tablet, has apparently been working on its own smartphone device, reportedly with Focxonn International, the phone maker based in China that Apple has had some press about lately.

Citing “people with knowledge of the matter,” Bloomberg reports that Amazon is also acquiring wireless technology patents to help it get a leg up on the current patent infringement lawsuit frenzy. If the rumors are true, could Amazon bring a third horse to the race?

When I saw that well-regarded audio company, SRS, was offering a new Mac-compatible version of their Audio Essentials software, I headed – nay, rushed – over to their website to grab the free demo for the new Mac version.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one, as the message that greeted me when I (finally) found the Mac download page: “Our servers our currently jammed due to the popularity of the new release of Audio Essentials. Downloading will take a little extra time. Thank you for understanding. We are working quickly to resolve the issue.”

Yep, it’s a hot download.

Apple is very quick to jump on rival companies who infringe upon its patents, and the company is currently embroiled in a number of legal battles with the likes of Samsung and HTC. But sometimes, Apple is on the receiving end of these complaints. In China, the Cupertino company is being sued for infringing upon a voice assistant patent with its Siri feature.

After all the back and forth-ing going on between Apple, Samsung, Google, and the US District Court lately, it’s hardly a surprise that the Nexus phone has undergone some changes on the Google Play website’s “Devices” sales page.

The target of Apple’s successful request to ban US sales of was taken down earlier this evening from the Play site, as reported on 9 to 5 Mac, and is currently back, but only as a “Coming Soon” item.

The last couple of weeks have seen quite a few wins for Apple in court. Bans against US sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and new Galaxy Nexus phone, for starters, were successful.

Apple’s request for an “emergency ban” for HTC phones, however, was denied today, allowing smartphone manufacturer HTC to continue to sell its latest devices while the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) investigates Apple’s patent infringement claim against the Taiwanese-based company.

In another setback for Samsung today, a US judge rejected Samsung’s request to lift the injunction against United States sales of the Galaxy Tab, a tablet computer than runs Google’s Android and competes with the iPad.

As we reported last week, US District Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple’s request to block any US sale of the tablet. Apple claims that the Galaxy Tab infringes on several of Apple’s patents that apply to it’s iOS devices and operating system. Samsung had appealed the court to stay the injunction pending resolution of an appeal, but today’s judgement seems unequivocal.

Three days after we reported an Apple win in regards to the Samsung Galaxy Tab, US District Judge Lucy Koh just handed Apple another, possibly temporary, victory.

Judge Lucy Koh handed Apple an injunction against Samsung selling their Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the US in the latest round of legal warfare between the two companies. Her decision comes after her previous denial of Apple’s request as well as a federal appeals court ruling for her to reconsider the request.

We often hear stories about Apple luring talented individuals away from rival companies over to its Cupertino campus. But sometimes it works the other way around. Facebook has installed a new Product Design Manager, Chris Weeldreyer, who previously worked as an Apple user interface design engineer.

Ever since it first debuted in January 2006, Apple has jealously guarded its MagSafe technology from being poached by the competition. Patented up the wazoo, Apple doesn’t allow knock-offs and goes after companies that try to rip it off, even going so far as to sue companies that make MagSafe compatible accessories that use official recycled MagSafe connectors.

It’s through being so aggressive about its MagSafe IP that, to this day, none of the competition has anything like it. That’s about to change, though: the new Microsoft Surface tablet has a MagSafe-like connector. Prepare for a legal showdown.