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Fujitsu and Acacia resolve patent disputes with settlement, keep it out of the courts
Fujitsu's bank balance may be a little lighter today, since Acacia Research Corp. has reported that subsidiaries of both companies have signed a settlement deal over patent disputes. As usual, Acacia is keeping tight-lipped about exactly what the patents cover, but a little digging on our part has revealed they are related to flash memory and RAM technologies. The agreement resolves lawsuits in the works at district courts in Texas and California, which is probably a good thing. After all, these cases can get pretty messy when they go to court.
Judge dismisses Apple vs. Motorola in its entirety, companies unable to prove damages
After tentatively shutting down (and reviving) Apple and Motorola's legal spat, Judge Richard Posner has put the lid on the case once and for all, dismissing it in its entirety this evening. Neither company was able to satisfy the Judge's call for proof of damages, causing him to dismiss the case and block both firms from refiling claims. "It would be ridiculous to dismiss a suit for failure to prove damages and allow the plaintiff to refile the suit so that he could have a second chance to prove damages." Posner said, "This case is therefore dismissed with prejudice; a separate order to that effect is being entered today." Posner's dismissal with prejudice means that Apple and Motorola's claims cannot be brought before the court again. Guess they'll have to find something else to fight over, eh? Check out the Judge's full opinion after the break.
Google to pay $0 in damages to Oracle, wait for appeal
After watching Judge Alsup strike down its patent and Java API infringement claims, Oracle seems to be cutting its losses, agreeing to accept $0 in damages from Google. Confused? So was the Judge, who reportedly responded to the proposal by asking, "is there a catch I need to be aware of?" No catch, but Oracle isn't giving up, stating that it's taking its case to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. If successful, the appeal could put the two firms back in Alsup's courtroom, perhaps asking for somewhere between the previously proposed $32.3 million and today's sum total of zilch. We'll let you know when the drama comes around again.
Judge puts the kibosh on one Apple vs. Motorola patent trial (maybe, tune in next week)
In an (all too rare, if you ask us) occurrence, US Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner has tentatively decided to dismiss an Apple patent infringement case against Motorola. Both sides were seeking damages in the case, and the decision to dismiss it "with prejudice" would mean neither side could refile these claims again. According to his ruling in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, neither side could credibly establish its damages so he's putting a stop to things before it ever goes in front of a jury. That said, he will issue a more in depth ruling next week and noted that he could still change his mind. For our sanity alone we hope he does not, although it ultimately won't matter much with so many other smartphone patent lawsuits involving these companies filling up dockets in courts around the globe.
Jury issues verdict in Android suit, finds that Google doesn't infringe Oracle patents
It appears that the jury has come to a conclusion in the Oracle v. Google trial, determining that Android does not infringe Oracle patents. Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for Northern California exonerated the search giant following a trial that lasted three weeks, ruling that Google did not infringe on six claims in US Patent RE38,104, along two claims in US Patent 6,061,520. Jurors were dismissed following today's ruling, with the trial's damages phase reportedly set to begin on Tuesday. According to The Verge, the jury did determine that Google was responsible for two counts of minor copyright infringement, relating to the order of Java APIs and several lines of rangeCheck code, which could be matched with a maximum penalty of $150,000 for each count. Regardless, it appears that the lawsuit, which dates back to 2010, when Oracle filed against Google for copyright and patent infringement related to Sun's Java code, could finally be coming to a close.
Judge to reconsider DoJ's AT&T antitrust suit
Late last month AT&T withdrew its application with the FCC to acquire T-Mobile, in an attempt, it said, to focus on winning approval from the Department of Justice, first. Now a district court judge is considering dismissing the US' antitrust suit against ole Ma Bell. According to Bloomberg, the DoJ is looking to either "withdraw without prejudice" or "stay" the suit, as a result of AT&T pulling its application from the FCC. Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle scheduled a hearing for December 15th to decide whether the deal is still possible in the proposed timeframe and the suit still worth pursuing. She had this to say: We don't have any confidence that we are spending all this time and effort and the taxpayers money and that we're not being spun. The landscape has changed. AT&T's lawyers remained steadfast, however, demanding the company's "day in court," and reiterating that approval from the DoJ would improve its chances of getting the thumbs-up from the FCC. For more sordid details on this legal ping-pong match, hit the source link below.
US judge won't return seized URL to Rojadirecta.com, absolutamente no
Welcome to the homepage of popular sports streaming and p2p site Rojadirecta.com. Why all the birdy logos and harsh words about going to prison? Well, it's a convoluted story, which began when a whole bunch of sports sites -- including Rojadirecta -- were summarily seized by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, based on "probable cause to believe" they'd been involved in copyright infringement. Awkwardly, the Spanish owners of this particular site had already been cleared of any wrongdoing by courts in Spain, but this counted for nada because their .com URL was American. So, their one hope was to convince a US judge that the seizure violated the First Amendment and should be overturned. This case won support from freedom of speech activists like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but on Thursday it finally failed. The presiding judge ruled that no rights had been violated, because Rojadirecta could easily set up shop at a non-US address and continue to function. Bad news indeed for the Spaniards -- maybe they should move to the UK, where due process takes a whole lot longer.
Google ordered to pay $5 million in Linux patent infringement suit (updated)
An East Texas jury recently awarded a relatively small computer firm patent troll a pretty hefty settlement (in you and me dollars) in a patent infringement suit that named Google, Yahoo, Amazon, AOL, and Myspace as defendants. The jury awarded Bedrock Computer Technologies LLC $5 million for a patent concerning the Linux kernel found in the software behind Google's servers. The patent in question is described as a "method and apparatus for information storage and retrieval using a hashing technique with external chaining and on-the-fly removal of expired data." It appears Google is the first of the defendants to face a judgement, but we have a feeling this decision might have set a precedent. Of course, no infringement suit would be complete without a healthy helping of appeals -- and considering the decision came from a district court, we can almost guarantee this case is no exception. You didn't expect the big guys to stay down for the count, did you? Update: As it turns out, the plaintiff in question here, Bedrock Computer Technologies, is actually owned by David Garrod, a lawyer and patent reform activist. Ars Technica profiled Garrod following the initial suit, pointing to the clear contradiction between his trolling and reform efforts. What's more, Bedrock sued Google and the rest of the defendants in June 2009. Just six months later, Bedrock was back in the courtroom, but this time it was on the receiving end. Red Hat, the company supplying the OS behind Google's search engine services, was suing Bedrock for patent invalidity.
Google's deal for book digitization rejected by judge, Books plans sent back to drawing board
It's taken a long, long time to fully consider Google's proposed $125 million settlement with publishers and authors of out-of-print works, but now the ruling has been handed down and it's not the one the Mountain View team wanted. Circuit Judge Chin, who had preliminarily approved the deal back in November 2009, has returned with the new conclusion that actually it goes "too far" in Google's favor. The origins of this settlement stem from a class action lawsuit filed against El Goog for a book digitization project it began back in 2004, and it's important to note that terms were agreed way back in 2008, before a bunch of external objections made them revise the document to its current state and refile it with the court in '09. Since then, the Department of Justice has had a look at antitrust concerns relating to Google potentially having a monopoly on orphan works (those whose author cannot be identified) and Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo have all piped up to say it's a bunk deal. Now, the one man standing between us and a whole ton of web-accessible reading materials has agreed with them. He does leave a pretty large door open for reconciliation, however, should Google be willing to accede to less favorable terms. Let's just hope whatever else transpires doesn't take another year and a half to do so.
AUO scores patent lawsuit decision over LG Display
LG Display may want to be more careful where it aims those patent lawsuits next time, after a dispute it kicked off with AUO has lead to a finding by a U.S. District court that it actually violated AUO's patents and not the other way around. Say hello to patent Nos 6,778,160, 6,689,629, 7,125,157 and 7,090,506, covering "technologies help to improve response time, improve reliability of LCDs, solve the problem of defects in the displayed images, and provide a very compact structure useful for small handheld devices, respectively." So far AUO is indicating that it will seek an injunction preventing LG from shipping its potentially infringing HDTVs, monitors, notebooks and even phones to the U.S, plus some other legal tough talk for good measure. After LG's almost inevitable appeal this could drag out for years and/or be resolved in a sudden alliance of cross licensing so while there still may be time to grab that Chocolate Touch you've been eyeing, we'd keep a casual eye on LE9500 shipping dates in case of slippage.
Papermaster hire on hold; IBM wins injunction
Apple's quest to replace outgoing iPod and iPhone VP Tony Fadell has run into a major roadblock: a federal district judge has granted IBM an injunction, forbidding former IBMer Mark Papermaster from joining Apple's ranks, at least for now. The story is a classic HR nightmare. According to a timeline at Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog, once he was offered a "once in a lifetime" position at Apple, Papermaster indicated he was going to resign at IBM. IBM executives then offered Papermaster a "substantial increase" in pay to entice him to stay. Papermaster declined, and quit. The next day, IBM filed their suit with the Southern District of New York, alleging that Papermaster is in violation of the non-compete clause of his employment contract. Papermaster claims in a counter-filing that Apple and IBM are in two totally different businesses: The former a consumer products company, the latter a high-end server manufacturer. Uh huh. Pundit Robert X. Cringely speculates that tapping Papermaster for the iPod/iPhone job was duplicitous, and Apple intends to move Papermaster into the lead position at the newly-acquired PA Semi division once the yearlong non-compete clause of his IBM contract expires. Apple said in a statement to Reuters that Apple "... will comply with the court's order but are confident that Mark Papermaster will be able to ultimately join Apple when the dust settles."
