IntellectualProperty
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Apple sues Samsung for 'copying' the iPhone and iPad
Whoa! In the world of big-time lawsuits, this must be just about the biggest. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has sued Samsung Electronics for copying "the look and feel" of its iPad tablet and iPhone smartphone. This relates to the Samsung Galaxy S 4G, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the iPhone 3G / 3GS models, and the slightly less obvious Epic 4G, Nexus S, and Galaxy Tab (presumably the older 7-inch model, since the newer ones aren't out yet) devices. The claim for intellectual property infringement is phrased as follows: "Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products." The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California on Friday and seeks injunctions against Samsung, damages (both actual and punitive), and a finding that the infringement was willful. Lest we forget, the rarest outcome in such legal tussles is for an actual judgment to actually be handed down, so the greatest likelihood is that this will just lead to another round of grudging handshakes and licensing going one way with money going the other way, but still, it's fun to see the big dogs barking at each other. Another aspect to these proceedings that shouldn't be overlooked is that, on the software front, they boil down to iOS versus Android (again). When Apple calls Samsung uninventive in its user interface, it's talking more about Android's perceived imitation of the iPhone's interface than whatever TouchWiz tweaks Samsung has slapped on top. And hey, if you're going to sue Google indirectly, you can't leave a major player like Samsung outside the courtroom, it just wouldn't be fair.
Motorola and Huawei drop pending lawsuits, enter into new info-sharing agreement
After months of fighting on the playground, Motorola and Huawei have finally come to an agreement to settle their differences once and for all. Both parties have now dropped their pending lawsuits, with Motorola originally accusing Huawei of stealing trade secrets from its former employees, and later on Huawei getting all worried about Motorola leaking confidential information over their partnership to the rivaling Nokia Siemens Networks. The new agreement will now allow Motorola "transfer its commercial agreements with Huawei to NSN for a fee," which would then permit NSN use this info to service Motorola's networks that utilise Huawei's equipment. Aww, isn't it nice when money solves everything? Press release after the break.
Google bids $900 million for Nortel patent portfolio, will use it as shield against patent trolls (update)
Google and Nortel have agreed on the princely sum of $900 million to start off a "stalking horse" auction -- wherein outside parties are still free to outdo Google's bid -- for the acquisition of Nortel's rather vast patent portfolio. The sale comes as part of the latter company's bankruptcy selloff and involves some 6,000 patents and patent applications, which encompass both wired and wireless communications, semiconductors, data networking, voice, and the internet -- going so far as to even touch on web search and social networking. The thing is, Google's not really enamored with these tidbits of intellectual property to the tune of nearly a billion dollars. No sir, a rather bitter blog post from the company this morning makes it quite clear that Google's acting in order to bolster its own intellectual property library and to "create a disincentive for others to sue." Both Android and Chrome get obliquely mentioned in Google's announcement as benefiting from the move, which should be completed by June of this year pending other bids and regulatory approvals. Update: Microsoft has noted that it has "a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to all of Nortel's patents that covers all Microsoft products and services, resulting from the patent cross-license signed with Nortel in 2006." That license will also transfer with the sale of the patent rights. All that means is that Microsoft cannot be sued for infringing on that bundle of rights as it is already licensed to use them. That means Microsoft is extremely unlikely to participate in this auction -- other than, of course, as a means to prevent others from obtaining the same rights.
Microsoft keeps gunning after Apple's 'generic' App Store trademark, brings in a linguistics expert
We'd say this was getting silly but that would imply that it wasn't already. Microsoft and Apple are still at each other's throat over the latter's trademark application for the term "App Store," with Microsoft now bringing in a Dr. Ronald Butters, Professor Emeritus at Duke University and a man with a taste for hardcore semantics. He says the compound noun "app store" is perfectly generic in that it "does not merely describe the thing named, it is the thing named." In a wildly geeky turn, he references the potential for someone discovering a use for masers and trying to trademark the term "maser store" in response, which would seem immediately and logically absurd. An app store, says the good doctor, is no more capable of being trademarked than a grocery store or a stationery store or a computer store. Of course, as with most trademark disputes, what's truly at stake here isn't linguistics, but a big fat wad of consumer goodwill. Having previously been quite uncomfortable with the idea of buying additional software for his mobile phone, Joe Consumer has nowadays grown quite accustomed to dropping little chunks of change on smartphone apps, and the terminology that sets his mind at ease most readily is indeed "app store." Preventing others from using that well established moniker would clearly be a significant competitive advantage for Apple and it's pretty hard to argue with its contention that it's responsible for generating the goodwill that sits behind it. Then again, we reckon Android's Market, webOS' admittedly small App Catalog, and other moves by the likes of RIM, Nokia and Microsoft itself with WP7, haven't done the app store cause any harm either, so in purely ethical terms it still seems a little rich for Apple to be claiming the app store crown all to itself. As to the legal battle itself, it's descending into quite amusing minutiae, but its outcome will be of great interest to most of the aforementioned mobile ecosystem purveyors.
Nokia keeps the lawyers well fed, returns to the ITC with fresh complaints about Apple
Like a desperate suitor unable to take "no" for an answer, Nokia's come back to the ITC with fresh allegations about Apple using its patented technologies without proper authorization. On Friday, the International Trade Commission made an initial determination that Apple wasn't actually making use of five patents held by the Finnish company -- a ruling that has yet to be ratified by the Commission itself, notably -- which Nokia predictably "does not agree" with and is now countering with the addition of seven more patents it believes have been infringed. Those relate to multitasking, data synchronization, positioning, call quality, and Bluetooth accessories, and affect "virtually all products" in Cupertino's portfolio. Rather boastfully, Nokia informs us that a total of 46 of its patents are now being actioned in some sort of lawsuit against Apple, whether you're talking about the ITC, US, Dutch, German, or British courts. As the old saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, send in the lawyers. See Nokia's press release about this latest legal activity after the break.
Kodak wants $1B in royalties revenue from Apple, RIM
At about 5:00 PM in Washington, D.C., today, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) will decide if it should review a judge's findings from January that concluded neither Apple's iPhone or RIM's Blackberry infringed patents held by Eastman Kodak Company. Antonio Perez, CEO of Kodak, told Bloomberg a victory could be worth more than US$1 billion in royalty revenue for the beleaguered company, which lost almost half its market value in the past year. "This is a lot of money, big money," Perez told Bloomberg. The dispute centers on a patent broadly described as an "image-preview feature in camera phones." In 2009, Kodak filed similar complaints against Korean manufacturers Samsung and LG Electronics. In those cases, both related to the same patents Apple and RIM are accused of violating, the ITC ruled in favor of the 131-year-old Kodak company. Samsung and LG paid a combined $964 million to settle the matter before it could be escalated to the ITC's full six-member commission which has the authority to ban importation of products that infringe U.S. patents.
Apple sues Amazon for App Store trademark infringement
You had to know this was coming. Apple, which is already engaged in a heated battle with Microsoft to prove that it deserves the sole rights over its "App Store" trademark claim, has filed suit against Amazon for "improper use" of the same. Amazon's Android Appstore seems to have been intentionally contracted to a single word to differentiate its name, but that difference isn't enough for Apple, which has asked a California court to grant a ruling preventing Amazon's use of the moniker and asking for unspecified damages. Apple claims it reached out to Amazon on three separate occasions asking it to rename its software download offering, but when faced with the lack of a "substantive response," it decided to take things to court. Its big task remains unchanged -- proving that the term App Store is something more than a generic descriptor -- and this was a somewhat inevitable move given Amazon's choice of name. The legal maneuvering, as always, continues.
Nokia collects design patent for a tablet, evokes N8 aesthetics (update: there's another one!)
It's no secret that Nokia's been casting an interested eye over the tablet market and now we have a bit of extra evidence to show its intent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The federal bureau has just published a design patent granted to the Finnish company for a tablet device, which was applied for on May 28th, 2010. Sadly, that date tells us what we're looking at is most probably a shelved MeeGo machine that never made it to market rather than an upcoming world conqueror, but still, here it is for all of us to gawk at and admire. Judging by the 3.5mm headphone jack outline -- which, like the rest of the dotted lines on the sketch, isn't covered by the patent -- we're likely looking at a 9- or 10-inch slate, whose design reminds us most acutely of Nokia's N8 phone. See more pics in the gallery below before returning to your mind cave to fantasize about what might have been... or might still be. Update: Electronista notes that Nokia's filed for and received the rights to a second tablet design patent, this one eschewing the N8 inspiration for a more generic shape. See it pictured after the break or at the second link below. [Thanks, Pradeep] %Gallery-119124%
Beleaguered Huawei encourages US government to investigate it, quotes two presidents in the process
When you're the second-largest supplier of communications infrastructure in the world and your president is an ex-member of the Chinese military, suspicions of espionage -- warranted or not -- are pretty much a foregone conclusion. Indeed, Huawei has suffered a couple of high-profile business setbacks in the past year over vague concerns that the company could be some sort of Trojan horse for Chinese intelligence, and they're fed up: after being pressured into shelving a planned acquisition of server virtualization firm 3Leaf Systems' intellectual property by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, they've published a lengthy open letter that implores the government to fully vet the company to put to rest any concerns or fears it has. The gist of the letter is that Huawei is owned by its employees, not the Chinese government, its loans are commercial, its products are continually audited by third-party companies for security, and the tax breaks it gets from the government are consistent with what private corporations in other countries receive. Huawei also manages to quote both Obama and Lincoln in the letter -- just to make sure it has both Democrats and Republicans covered, we suppose -- and concludes by saying it believes that "any thorough government investigation will prove that Huawei is a normal commercial institution and nothing more." Sounds like a challenge to us.
ChaCha sues HTC for Facebook phone trademark infringement
Facebook phone rumors were swirling for quite awhile, then HTC answered a question that seemingly nobody asked by delivering unto the world a phone with a dedicated Facebook button... the ChaCha. In what can only be considered a stroke of luck for all of humanity, the Taiwanese handset maker has been granted the opportunity to rectify its naming gaffe courtesy of a trademark infringement suit brought by ChaCha Inc. That company trademarked its name and logo in 2007 for its text and voice internet search engine services and is (rightfully) displeased with the HTC's choice of names for its Facebook-focused handset. ChaCha doesn't want mobile users thinking that it's endorsed the phone, and given that the company's bread and butter is providing mobile search, such confusion seems likely. ChaCha is asking for money damages and a permanent injunction to prevent the phone from going to market with its name. That's just fine with us -- if only the courts could grant an injunction to remove that Facebook button.
Motorola dragged into court for Xoom trademark infringement
To Xoom or not to Xoom, that is the question -- and Xoom Corporation says Motorola needs to ditch the name of its new Honeycomb-laden slate. That's right, Xoom has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit asking for monetary damages, a temporary restraining order, and / or a preliminary injunction to spoil Moto's release party for its new tablet. In case you're curious, Xoom (the company) does seem to predate the slate by a good bit: it's been operating its online payments business under that name and has owned the www.xoom.com domain since 2003. Xoom got a registered service mark for its money transfer and e-payment services in 2004. But what about that Xoom trademark Motorola filed last year for mobile computers and related accessories? Traditionally, courts give priority to the first user to register a mark, so Xoom Corp. certainly has a case here, but we're not so sure they'll be able to prove that consumers are likely to be confused. To find out, the court will look at multiple factors to determine the likelihood of confusion: the strength of Xoom's mark, the similarities between the two marks, the proximity of Xoom's services and software to Moto's tablet in the consumer marketplace, evidence of actual customer confusion, and the similarity of the marketing channels used by Moto and Xoom. Honestly, we can't see Moto marketing the Xoom tablet to anyone looking for online payment services (aside from the occasional Android Market purchase) so Xoom Corp. has a tough road to hoe, but stranger things have happened -- we'll see how it goes.
The Light and How to Swing It: Straight talk about holy paladin healing
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like how come I had to use Lay on Hands to save that tank. You've heard me talk about Cataclysm's revolutionary triage paradigm of healing, and you've read all about the new Three Heal style for heal design. Every healing class starts with three nearly-identical healing spells as a baseline. The devs then sprinkle in a few extra heals to make each class somewhat unique. Add in a variety of AoE and specialty heals, and you've got a recipe for any one of the healing classes in Cataclysm. We were subject to a lot of retooling to get our holy tree to fit into this model, but it was definitely a success. While it's fun to discuss the paradigm from a bird's-eye view, it's also not representative of actually healing encounters. WoW isn't played with a pen and paper, but with a keyboard and mouse. Every boss encounter requires different techniques, and their varying mechanics are key in determining the best course of action. How can we take what we know about the new healing paradigm and actually apply it to real encounters? What heals are holy paladins really using today?
Huawei sues Motorola over concerns it'll reveal secrets to Nokia Siemens
After tying off a $1.2 billion deal last July, Motorola and Nokia Siemens Networks -- the new owner of Moto's telecom infrastructure business -- have had a little roadblock thrown in their way courtesy of China's Huawei. Turns out Moto and Huawei had a partnership in place that involved the former reselling the latter's equipment, which necessitated some rather cozy information sharing -- and now Huawei's concerned that Motorola might be turning over some or all of that intellectual property to NSN as a part of the sale. You'd think this is the sort of thing that would've been squared away prior to inking a ten-figure deal, but Huawei says that it "had not been given assurance that Motorola would not transfer proprietary information" over to NSN, one of Huawei's fiercest rivals in the infrastructure biz... so you can kinda understand their concern. More on this as it develops.
Microsoft files motion to dismiss Apple's 'App Store' trademark claim, says term is generic
That Apple had the original App Store isn't under dispute, but should the company have the right to exclude others from using the same term to describe their program repositories? Microsoft says no, and has this week filed a motion with the US Patent and Trademark Office asking for it to dismiss Apple's trademark claim for "App Store." The application seeks to secure for Apple the exclusive use of the term in the context of computer software broadly, not just on the mobile front, but Microsoft is arguing that its constituent words are generic (or simply descriptive) both individually and as a pair. In making its case, the Redmond company cites Steve Jobs himself, whose exposition on the topic of Android fragmentation included specific mention of multiple "app stores" for the Google OS. It would seem this has been brewing for a while, too, as the last update -- dated 7th of July, 2010 -- on Apple's trademark application notes there's a pending opposition to its claim. Now that Microsoft's escalated its complaint to asking for a summary dismissal, it'll be interesting to see on which side of the great divide the decision falls.
Paul Allen files amended complaint, points out exactly where patent infringement is hiding
Left with just two weeks to explain exactly how seven of the web's biggest properties (and three office supply chains) violated his company Interval's patents, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen figured out a plan -- Intervals' lawyers are drawing big, colored boxes around large swaths of the allegedly infringing websites' real estate. In all seriousness, a lot of companies may owe Allen a lot of money if Interval truly has a case, because Interval claims to have patented no less than the ability for a website to take a user-selected piece of content and suggest other related pieces of content that might be of interest. Oh, and it's also apparently patented pop-ups and widgets, as most anything that displays information "in an unobtrusive manner that occupies the peripheral attention of the user" is getting the same treatment. Hilariously, it appears that the co-founder of Microsoft didn't provide his lawyers with basic scanning technology, because the PDF of the exhibits they uploaded to the court's web site is just epically bad -- check out everything they say infringes in the gallery below. Disclaimer: We should note that AOL is among the companies being sued by Allen and Interval, and that Engadget is owned by AOL. So you know, just think about that a bunch, or something. %Gallery-112185%
Motorola seeks 'Xoom' trademark around the world, could well be the name of its Android tablet
The guys over at Pocketnow have been doing their intellectual property homework lately and they've uncovered an atypically broad trademarking effort being carried out by Motorola. The Droid maker has sought to be associated with the term "Xoom" in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and even Taiwan, signifying that whatever the company intends to do with the name will play a pretty significant role in its future plans. The category applied for is defined as "Mobile computers and related accessories," which really narrows things down to the one device Moto has in its labs that everyone's talking about: its Android Honeycomb tablet. All this legal team activity seems to point to its name being the Motorola Xoom, but there's still time for minds to change and branding to be revised. Hey, at least we know what the logo will look like.
Rumor: Apple bidding for Nortel patent assets
The formerly high-flying Canadian telecommunications hardware provider Northern Telecom appears to be on its last legs, and Apple and Google are apparently among the vultures circling overhead ready to pick at the most valuable parts of the carcass. The two Silicon Valley companies are said to be among the bidders for Nortel's huge patent portfolio. Nortel is a company with a history dating back to the earliest days of the telephone, having been established in 1882 by the Bell Telephone Company of Canada to manufacture phones and network equipment north of the border. In the 1990s, Nortel had tremendous growth as it provided many of the bits and pieces that made the expansion of the internet and mobile phone networks possible. The burst of the bubble saw the rapid decline of Nortel until it finally filed for bankruptcy protection in mid-2009. Nortel has a portfolio of over 4,000 patents estimated to be worth over $1 billion. With both Apple and Google involved in patent litigation relating to their respective mobile phone efforts, the Nortel patents are likely be of great value as a defensive measure. Research in Motion and Motorola are also expected to bid on the patents in order to protect their own positions. Intellectual property battles between big companies often end up in a stalemate if both sides can conjure up sufficient patents that their opponent might be infringing on. The result is usually some sort of cross-licensing agreement that makes the lawyers wealthier and lets the companies go on their merry way. The auction of the patents is expected to be wrapped up soon. [via MacRumors]
Motorola asks court to invalidate Apple patents, preempt another lawsuit
The smartphone intellectual property wars are seriously heating up, as Motorola sided with HTC this week in an effort to cover its own rear. Remember those twenty patents Apple aimed at the Taiwanese OEM? Motorola says they're no good, and is trying to get them thrown out of court -- an important tactic, because if the patents do hold water and are successfully used against HTC, Apple might turn around and sue Motorola with them too. That's because there's more at stake here than OEM phones, but Android as a whole, and as such other manufacturers that implement Android might potentially be targets as well. Oh, and don't think this is Motorola's first salvo in the arena, either -- it's also suing Apple outright to get the point across, and is similarly being targeted by Microsoft for smartphone patents of its own. We're just two guns shy of a Mexican standoff, folks.
Meizu M8 ceases production amid pressure from Apple and intellectual property office
Well, can't say we didn't see this coming; we're just surprised that it's taken this long for Meizu to take a hit over its notorious handset. In case you have no idea what we're talking about, earlier this month said Chinese company's been in heated talks with Apple due to the M8 smartphone bearing an "appearance roughly similar" to the iPhone. Seriously, that's the only reason Apple provided for the accusation, if CEO Jack Wong is to be trusted (and hey, he did kinda ask for it). Anyhow, the latest development is that Meizu's bowing to pressure from both the provincial intellectual property office and Cupertino, and announced that it's shutting down production lines for its flagship M8 this month. This is no doubt a big blow to the company, but it might get even nastier -- here's what Jack said in one of his many frustrated forum postings: Apple requested that we cease manufacturing the M8 this month, we agreed but then [Apple] came back and asked for a sales ban instead. I can cope with a production freeze, but not with having our shops closed and thus not being able to use up our inventory. If Apple and the provincial IPO take another insatiable step, I can only go head to head against them. So, it looks like the M8's all set for an early retirement, either way -- it doesn't look like Apple's going to let this one go easily, and Jack's also expressed concern over the fact that the IPO has the power to shut his factory down without going to court. That said, things are still looking positive for the elusive M9 -- from the sounds of it, Meizu's upcoming Android phone isn't affected by this takedown (yet); but the question is whether Jack and co. can keep the shops running until a December launch for their next flagship device. Oh well, hang in there, Meizu!
British network ITV responds to Apple iTV rumor, says it has 'vigorously defended' its IP before
This probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise, but British television network ITV has responded to the rumor that Apple plans to rename the Apple TV as... iTV. Now, Apple's no stranger to using names which are already trademarked -- if you'll recall, Fujitsu used to own iPad and Cisco owned iPhone before Apple took care of all of that with its gigantic piles of money. Well, someone at ITV is apparently not pleased to hear that iTV is one of the next Apple products, with a report in The Mirror this morning citing unnamed sources which described its executives as "furious," and hints that litigation is not out of the realm of possibility. Pocket Lint's contacted an ITV spokesperson for a more official take on the matter, and ITV's director of Communications, Mike Large, says that ITV has a "strong brand" with a "highly valued IP," that ITV is a household name in the UK, and that it has "vigorously defended" its IP in the past. Of course, assuming Apple does go ahead with the iTV name, it could always choose to call it something else in the UK, and it's also worth noting that ITV has been fighting to gain the US mark for the name since at least 2006, and has so far failed to do so. While ITV seems to have done a pretty good job at dodging any direct questions about lawsuits, it's pretty clear that the network wants to let everyone know from the outset that they're not going to ignore this one.
