patents
Apple Ordered to Pay $145 Million to Ottawa Patent Licensing Company WiLan
Ottawa-based patent licensing company, WiLan, has won in court versus Apple over a patent infringement dispute. A San Diego, California jury ordered Apple to pay $145 million USD in damages, for infringing on two patents related to wireless communications technology. The decision was made earlier today. According to WiLan’s update on their trial against Apple:...
Nokia Sues Apple for Patent Infringement in the U.S. and Germany
Today, Nokia announced that it has filed several complaints against Apple in Germany and the United States. The company is accusing Apple of infringing on their patents. The lawsuit seems to stem from a disagreement between the two companies over licensing fees for Nokia's technology. This morning, Apple filed an antitrust lawsuit against several patent...
Apple Uses an Obscure Legal Mechanism to Keep Trademark Filings Secret
It is well known that Apple uses a variety of non-U.S. countries to help reduce its tax bill. However, Apple also takes advantage of some interesting pieces of international legal mechanisms to keep its future plans a secret. Specifically, Apple is a big fan of Jamaica when it comes to filing trademarks about upcoming products....
Samsung Seeks Supreme Court Bid to Dismiss $399M Damages to Apple
Apparently Samsung isn't ready to shell out the $548 million in damages to Apple as initially agreed. The South Korean company used its right of appeal this morning and took the matter to the US Supreme Court in a final effort to reduce the amount it has been obliged to pay. While Samsung's petition needs to...
U.S. Jury Clears Apple of Infringing Wireless Patents from Canadian Firm
Apple has won in court tonight down in Tyler, Texas, a hotbed for patent infringement cases in the United States. According to Reuters, Ottawa-based Conversant’s subsidiary, Core Wireless Licensing, sought $100 million in damages from Apple alleging the latter had infringed on five wireless patents used in iPhones and iPads. The jury tonight sided with...
Rockstar Consortium is Selling its 4,000 Patents for $900 Million
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Rockstar Consortium has agreed to sell over 4,000 of its telecommunications patents to San Francisco-based patent clearinghouse RPX Corp. The publication highlights that the consortium of big technology companies, which includes Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony, is selling its patent assets for less than a quarter of the $4.5 billion it paid for...
Nintendo Patents Game Boy Emulation for Mobiles and In-Flight Entertainment
A new Nintendo patent published by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveals an invention that allows the emulation of company's mobile game consoles, including the Game Boy line of devices, on mobile devices including smartphones, as well as in other settings, including on seat-back displays in airplanes and trains, TechCrunch is reporting. The source...
Steve Jobs Still Winning Patents, Years After His Death
Remember how the late iconic rapper Tupac Shakur kept releasing albums after his death? Looks like the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs is continuing to do the same, but with his names on patents. According to a report by MIT Technology Review, almost a third of the 458 patented inventions and designs credited...
Apple Patents Behaviour Recognition System to Protect Rightful iPhone Owners
Apple continues its foray into iDevice security with a new patent for "Generating notifications based on user behaviour" (via AppleInsider). You may recall that another usage-pattern-based patent took advantage of the user’s location to apply different layers of security. Today’s patent is also based on usage habits, as it describes an iPhone or other mobile...
Google and Samsung Agree to 10 Year Licensing Agreement
Today, Google and Samsung have reached an agreement to license each other’s patents for the next decade. The deal between both companies includes existing patents as well as any patents filed over the next 10 years. The two companies have, for the most part, been on the same side of the global patent wars over...
Samsung Files For 5 Times More Patents Than Apple in 2013, Shifts to Focus on Patent Trolls in 2014
In May 2013, Samsung opened a new patent business in Washington called Intellectual Keystone Technology (IKIT). Around the same time, it was reported that Samsung sarcastically stated that their “legal battles with Apple encouraged them to invest in more patents,” which turned out to be true. The image from the report, shown below, shows that...
Apple No. 1 Target of Patent Trolls
Non-practicing entities (NPEs), or in other words, patent trolls, have attacked Apple the most (alongside HP and Samsung) during the past five years, according to Michael Brody, a Silicon Valley lawyer speaking at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University on Tuesday (via TechHive, Tinh te). (more…)