Rambus planning appeal after losing ITC patent case against LSI and STMicroelectronics

Rambus planning appeal after losing ITC patent case against LSI and STMicroelectronics

Rambus has lost the ITC dispute it filed with most of the electronics industry back in the day. Only LSI and STMicroelectronics remained as respondents after the company negotiated settlements with Freescale, Broadcom, MediaTek and NVIDIA. In its decision, the court found that some of the patents were unenforceable, while others ceased to be under the “clean hands” doctrine because Rambus had allegedly destroyed relevant documents. Company general counsel, Thomas Lavelle, has said in a statement that its next move might be to make an appeal to the Federal Circuit — where it’s hoping for better luck.

Continue reading Rambus planning appeal after losing ITC patent case against LSI and STMicroelectronics

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Rambus planning appeal after losing ITC patent case against LSI and STMicroelectronics originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fujifilm sues Motorola over broad camera and phone patents, claims RAZRs and Xyboards are at fault

Motorola RAZR MAXX review

Motorola won’t have had much of a break following the dismissal of a key Apple lawsuit, after all. In a low-profile move, Fujifilm has sued Motorola for allegedly violating four particularly broad patents on camera and phone technologies — we’re talking basics such as transmitting data outside of a cellular network. The camera designer has supposedly been pushing for a licensing deal since April of last year without much success, and it’s asserting that “at least” a wide swath of Motorola devices released both before and after that time are the key offenders, including the RAZR MAXX and Xyboard lines. The complaint is scarcely into the docket and makes it difficult to gauge just what kind of chance Fujifilm has to win in court; we just know that Motorola’s (and now Google’s) patent lawsuit headache is developing into more of a migraine.

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Fujifilm sues Motorola over broad camera and phone patents, claims RAZRs and Xyboards are at fault originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jul 2012 12:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM slapped with $147.2 million in damages from Mformation patent lawsuit (update: RIM response)

RIM slapped with $1472 million in damages from Mformation patent suit

RIM just keeps taking hard knocks in the patent arena. Just days after Nokia had its turn piling on extra infringement claims, device management developer Mformation Technologies has won a hefty $147.2 million verdict against RIM for allegedly violating a remote management patent. The damages amount to $8 for every BlackBerry linked up to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server up to a certain point — no small impact for a company whose lifeblood is business. About the only reprieve is an escape from future penalties, which would most certainly have soured the recovery efforts for a company already on the ropes. The crew from Waterloo hasn’t yet responded to the verdict, but it’s hard to picture the company leaving those kinds of damages to sit without an appeal.

Update: RIM has issued a statement in response to the verdict, and it’s unsurprisingly putting forward motions that it hopes would overturn the verdict. It’s also keen to point out that issues like the obviousness of the patent haven’t been settled, which it hopes would deflate Mformation’s case.

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RIM slapped with $147.2 million in damages from Mformation patent lawsuit (update: RIM response) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple sued by Shanghai firm for allegedly treading on patent with Siri, may say ‘ni hao’ in court

Apple sued by Shanghai firm for allegedly treading on patent with Siri, may say 'ni hao' in court

For all the heat it dishes out elsewhere in the world, Apple has had a hard time catching a break in China — between having to settle with Proview over the iPad trademark and a recent, smaller dispute over Snow Leopard, it’s been primarily on the defensive. The latest rear-guard action is in Shanghai, where Zhi Zhen Internet Technology claims that Siri’s voice command charms infringe on a patent used for the Xiao i Robot voice system on phones and the web. We’re just hearing about the lawsuit now, but Zhi Zhen insists that it’s been long in the making with accusations filed in June and a patent application dating all the way back to 2004. Apple is characteristically silent on how it will tackle the case. We suspect it’ll be more than a little eager to fight back in court: in addition to the lawsuit presenting a very conspicuous roadblock to bringing Siri to China with iOS 6, it comes from a company that hasn’t been shy about plastering the Siri icon all over its home page.

Apple sued by Shanghai firm for allegedly treading on patent with Siri, may say ‘ni hao’ in court originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Next Web  |  sourceNASDAQ, Xiao i Robot  | Email this | Comments

UK judge rules HTC doesn’t violate Apple’s patents, invalidates Cupertino’s claims

UK judge rules HTC doesn't violate apple's patentsWell, Apple had a few legal victories over the last couple of weeks, but it’s just been handed a significant defeat by Judge Christopher Floyd. The UK court handed down a ruling that HTC does not violate four Apple patents, including the infamous slide-to-unlock claim. What’s more, the judge ruled that three of the four patents in question were not valid, among them the aforementioned unlocking design. The only one of the four patents that stood at the end of the day was related to scrolling through images in the photo management app, but HTC did not infringe upon the claim. This follows the ITC refusing an emergency ban on HTC products in the US. Don’t think you’ve heard the last of slide-to-unlock, however. As HTC, Apple and Samsung have repeatedly shown, they’re just as interested in competing in the court room as they are on store shelves (if not more so).

UK judge rules HTC doesn’t violate Apple’s patents, invalidates Cupertino’s claims originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kodak gets the green light to sell digital imaging patents

Kodak gets the green light to sell digital imaging patents

It’s been a long road for Kodak to get to this point, but it seems the floundering company has finally won approval to sell off its digital imaging patents. Over the objections of Apple and Flashpoint (nothing like kicking a company when its down), the Bankruptcy Court awarded Kodak the right to auction off its Digital Capture and Kodak Imaging Systems and Services (KISS) patent portfolios. While the challenges haven’t been completely dismissed, the ruling provides an opportunity for the struggling Rochester firm to move ahead with its auction plans in the face of what it calls “baseless claims.” Soon enough the bids for the rather sizable and valuable portfolios will start rolling in, and should provide Kodak with enough cash to keep its head above water for a little bit longer. For more detail, check out the PR after the break.

[Image Credit: MercerFilm]

Continue reading Kodak gets the green light to sell digital imaging patents

Kodak gets the green light to sell digital imaging patents originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft catches a break: ITC remands Motorola case, Xbox 360 dodges at least a 2012 ban

Microsoft and Motorola

Things were looking grim for gaming in April, when the International Trade Commission decided that the Xbox 360 violated Motorola patents and the console’s US future was in doubt. The agency hasn’t necessarily reversed its decision, but it just gave Microsoft a significant (and possibly permanent) reprieve. The Commission has remanded Motorola’s case back to the Administrative Law Judge that gave the initial ruling, which very nearly restarts the clock: a new ruling won’t come for months, and the usual review process guarantees even more of a delay even if the decision once more works in Motorola’s favor. Patent suit watcher Florian Mueller is now confident that the Xbox 360 won’t face any real risk of a ban in 2012, at a minimum. If the new decision doesn’t clear Microsoft outright, it still pushes any ruling past a Microsoft lawsuit’s trial in mid-November, when Motorola might be blocked from attempting any ban using its standards-based patents. We’ve rarely seen a majority or total reversal of this kind of ITC patent dispute before it reaches the appeals stage, but there’s a distinct chance of that flip happening here — especially as the ITC is using Apple’s successful dismissal of an S3 Graphics victory as the judge’s new template.

Microsoft catches a break: ITC remands Motorola case, Xbox 360 dodges at least a 2012 ban originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jun 2012 17:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple lands preliminary ban against Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the US (update: search patent the key)

Galaxy Nexus HSPA

It hasn’t been Samsung’s best week. Just days after Judge Lucy Koh granted a preliminary ban on sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, she’s following it up with a similar granted request on the Galaxy Nexus. Judge Koh had already signaled that she thought Apple’s lawsuit over four patents might have merit, but it’s only now that she’s deciding the potential damage is worth halting sales of the phone until there’s a final trial verdict. Samsung will no doubt try to appeal the dispute, which centers on Android 4.0’s slide-to-unlock mechanism (among other elements), but there’s a lot more urgency here than with the outgoing Tab 10.1: the Galaxy Nexus is still a current-generation device, and just became Google’s Android 4.1 phone flagship. Samsung’s odds aren’t great given that Apple has already used one of the patents to give HTC grief with its imports.

Update: As patent lawsuit guru Florian Mueller found, the clincher for the ban was the patent on unified search that’s linked to Siri. Although Judge Koh is inclined to believe Apple’s view regarding all four patents, that search patent is the one whose violation would reportedly merit more than a slap on the wrist. She’s similarly convinced that Apple’s patents are legitimate and likely won’t be dismissed anytime soon.

Apple lands preliminary ban against Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the US (update: search patent the key) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceDan Levine (Twitter), Reuters  | Email this | Comments