Can Any Smartphone Survive The Patent Gantlet?
With the news coming out that the US International Trade Commission (ITC) has agreed to investigate both RIM and Apple over patent claims brought by Kodak, it makes you wonder if we'll soon be able to...
View ArticleApple Goes Offensive On Patents: Sues HTC
Well, well, well. We've discussed recently how it seemed effectively impossible for any smartphone maker to survive the patent gantlet, as there are so many patents held by so many different parties,...
View ArticleAnd... Here Come The iPad Patent Claims
Back when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, one of the points he made clear in his presentation was how Apple had applied for over 200 patents on the device. And, yet, despite all of that, Apple has...
View ArticleLG Asks US Gov't To Block Import Of All PS3s Over Patent Infringement
If Sony can't kill off interest in the PS3 by playing whac-a-mole with jailbreak code, perhaps it can get some assistance from the US government. It appears that LG, using the ITC loophole is asking...
View ArticleJudge Says The iPhone Didn't Violate Nokia's Patents
Nokia, who used to absolutely dominate the mobile phone market, has definitely seen better days. The iPhone really took it by surprise and the company really hasn't done a particularly good job...
View ArticleITC Not Impressed With Latest Smartphone Patent Thicket Cases
In the past, we've pointed out how many patent holders now get two entirely separate cracks at trying to get those they accuse of patent infringement to pay up. There's the regular court system and...
View ArticleUS ITC Uses Ridiculous Methodology To Claim 'Piracy' In China Costs US Firms...
I'm always a bit wary of news reports about "studies" claiming huge dollar value "losses" due to infringement, as when you look at the details, the methodology is almost always suspect. Of course,...
View ArticleNintendo Stomps Motiva's Patent Infringement Claims
Businessweek is reporting that Nintendo has won a patent infringement case brought by Motiva. Back in November 2008, Motiva filed a patent infringement suit, via the ITC loophole against Nintendo over...
View ArticleAlternative To PIPA/SOPA Proposed; Points Out That This Is An International...
While the MPAA has been pretending that there are no alternatives beyond the insanity that is PIPA and SOPA, some in Congress have actually been hard at work on trying to think through the specific...
View ArticleAs Expected, SOPA Supporters Hate More Reasonable Alternative
Last week, we wrote about an interesting proposal from a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives to deal with the supposed problem of "rogue sites" without the censorship and technical...
View ArticleThe Good And The Bad Of The New OPEN Bill From Wyden And Issa
Sen. Wyden and Rep. Issa have released a draft of OPEN: Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act, intended as an alternative to SOPA/PROTECT-IP. See my prior posts opposing SOPA and...
View ArticleApple May Get To Remove Obvious Features From Android
In one prong of the many-pronged attack that Apple has been making on Android, it's scored a victory at the International Trade Commission, where it's been determined that the idea of making a phone...
View ArticleRIAA: We Must Take A Shoot First, Ask Questions Later Approach To Censorship
Whaddaya know. Mitch Glazier (the man who tried to keep artists from regaining their own copyrights), the number two guy at the RIAA, has decided to speak out against the OPEN bill -- the alternative...
View ArticleNew HTC Phones Stopped At Customs Due To Apple Patent Fight
In one of many Apple patent fights concerning smartphones, it went after Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC in both the courts and using the infamous ITC loophole that gives the company two separate...
View ArticleITC Sides With Microsoft Over Patent; Motorola Android Phones Could Be Banned
It's a difficult time to be making an Android phone, it appears. Just days after customs started blocking various HTC phones based on an ITC injunction due to some Apple patents, the ITC has also...
View ArticleJudge Posner Dumps Ridiculous Patent Fight Between Apple & Motorola As...
Judge Richard Posner is, perhaps, the most influential judge not on the Supreme Court. Beyond writing a ton of books (and columns and articles and blog posts), his rulings often seem to carry extra...
View ArticleKodak's Legacy? Arms Dealer For The Patent Wars?
As many people expected, Kodak has officially moved to sell off its patents to whoever can abuse them the most. Since the company is in bankruptcy, it needs permission to do this, but that's the easy...
View ArticleGoogle Launches Patent Attack On Apple In A Disappointing First For The Company
For years, despite being the defendant in tons of patent suits, and despite having a decent patent portfolio of its own, Google had never gone on the offensive with its patents against others. With...
View ArticleRather Than Pressuring The ITC Over Key Patent Cases, Congress Should Fix A...
For years we've talked about how many patent holders these days have two cracks at anyone they accuse of infringing: through the courts and then separately through the ITC, which can issue an...
View ArticleUSPTO And DOJ Shocked (Shocked!) That Companies Abuse Patents, But For The...
In a move that struck some by surprise, the US Patent Office and the Department of Justice put out an interesting statement arguing that companies need to stop abusing promises for fair, reasonable...
View ArticleBogus Copyright Numbers Enter The Fight Over Cyberhacking As Well
For many years, we've talked about just how bogus the numbers are that get thrown around for "losses" and "job losses" due to copyright infringement. And yet they keep getting repeated. Two years ago,...
View ArticlePresident Obama Comes Out Strongly Against Patent Trolls; Here Are The Details
Back in February, we were a bit surprised during President Obama's "Fireside Hangout" when he appeared to speak out against patent trolls. Historically, most politicians had always tiptoed around the...
View ArticleSurprise: Obama's New US Trade Rep Overturns ITC, Stops Ban On Apple Products
For years, we've been watching how patent holders get two cracks at the proverbial (and, in this case, literal) Apple when it comes to patents. They can sue in court for patent infringement and -- in...
View ArticleTrademark Insanity: Sparkfun Has To Destroy $30,000 Worth Of Multimeters...
As pretty much all of you have been sending in, our favorite open source electronics firm, Sparkfun, has found itself in the middle of yet another unfortunate intellectual property issue that...
View ArticleFluke Gives Sparkfun A Bunch Of Multimeters In Response To Trademark Mess
Well, that was fast. We just had our post about the unfortunate trademark situation that Sparkfun found itself in, with 2,000 multimeters held by US Customs at the border because they happened to have...
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