patents

The U.S. International Trade Commission today ended Motorola's case against Apple, which accused the iPhone and Mac maker of patent infringement.

In a ruling (PDF), the ITC said that Apple was not violating Motorola's U.S. patent covering proximity sensors, which the commission called "obvious." It was the last of six patents Motorola aimed at Apple as part of an October 2010 complaint.

That complaint was part of a larger legal effort by Motorola against Apple that also involved patent lawsuits in several U.S. District courts.

The decision follows a long series of determinations, … Read more

Microsoft has struck a patent-licensing agreement with Hon Hai, parent company of Foxconn, that protects the company from being sued by the software giant over devices it makes that run Google's Android and Chrome operating systems.

Hon Hai will pay Microsoft unspecified royalties in exchange for "broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio," the companies announced this evening.

Microsoft has long argued that Chrome and Android infringe on its patented technology in areas ranging from the user interface to the underlying operating system. However, rather than going after Google for patent violations, Microsoft has targeted device makers, … Read more

Apple has finally won a patent for a system that lets iOS users more easily organize their apps.

Granted today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the patent dubbed "Device, method, and graphical user interface for managing folders" describes the method used by iOS to let users create folders in which to store apps and activate the "jiggle mode" to move or delete them. Introduced in iOS 4, the technology outlined in the patent is pretty much the way iOS users know it today.

Holding down the icon for an iOS app causes all … Read more

Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility are doing everything they can to keep their patent litigation going, a district court judge has charged.

In an order released earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Scola said that he believes Apple and Motorola "have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end." According to Bloomberg, which was first to report on the ruling, Scola said that the companies are not properly using the court's time and … Read more

Contending that the judge presiding over its patent lawsuit against Samsung erred, Apple has asked that $85 million in dismissed damages be reinstated.

In a March ruling in the landmark case, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh cut damages on some Samsung products found to infringe Apple's patents, carving $450.5 million off the original $1.05 billion judgment and calling for a new trial on the damages to recalculate them. However, Apple has complained that Koh made a mistake in reducing at least part of the damages by excluding two devices.

In an effort to get those … Read more

It's hip to be litigious.

In case the spat between Apple and Samsung, and myriad other tussles between tech giants weren't proof enough, comes a new study that says lawsuits filed by patent trolls last year made up the majority of patent-related complaints filed in the U.S.

The study, which was published by UC Hastings and Lex Machina this morning, analyzed about 13,000 cases spanning some 30,000 patents. It's a follow-up to last October's look at some 100 lawsuits, which found that lawsuits from patent firms were up 22 percent in the past … Read more

You may eventually be able to transfer files between a computer and mobile device just by placing the two near each other.

Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an Apple patent application known as "Apparatus and method for interacting with handheld carrier hosting media content," describes a file transfer technology that automatically kicks in when two devices are positioned next to each other. One device would sense when the other is nearby and then send or receive a certain document, picture, song, or other item.

As one example, you may be creating an e-mail … Read more

A new front has been opened in the ongoing battle between patent trolls and their targets.

A startup, called Unified Patents and formed by former Intuit intellectual property litigation chief Kevin Jakel, attempts to take aim at companies that collect patents and target other businesses for licensing fees or lawsuits. Unified Patents, which made its presence known in a Wall Street Journal profile yesterday, believes that it can achieve its goal by showing strength in numbers. It's currently in the process of recruiting several companies to join the organization and the fight.

According to the Journal, Unified Patents has … Read more

A U.S. trade agency judge has decided the text-selection feature Samsung has on its mobile devices infringes an Apple patent. If upheld, the ruling could stop Samsung from sending devices to the United States.

The International Trade Commission judge also decided that Samsung did not infringe on the Apple patent that covers how a device detects if a microphone or other device is plugged in to its microphone jack, Reuters reported.

If the commission agrees with the judge on the text-selection issue, the ITC can stop Samsung from importing the several infringing products, including the Galaxy, Transform, and Nexus … Read more