Hasta La Gadget!

This just hasn’t been Samsung’s summer. On top of Apple winning its earliest civil lawsuit against Samsung, the International Trade Commission has just handed out an initial determination that Apple didn’t violate any of four Samsung patents (including two reportedly standards-essential examples) by offering the iPad and iPhone. While Judge James Gildea didn’t publicly outline why Apple was in the clear, he added that Samsung lacks a domestic business that uses the patents — important when it’s trying to claim economic harm in the US. The verdict still gives Samsung at least four months’ room to breathe while the ITC reviews the decision, but it’s hard to see Samsung enjoying the reduced offensive strength when it’s already on the defensive in American courtrooms.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

ITC says Apple didn’t violate four Samsung patents with iPad, iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola filed its most recent ITC complaint against Apple so late into last week that the court system couldn’t immediately provide more details; we’re only just seeing documents now that the weekend is over. As it stands, the case involves seven patents that mostly touch on staple technologies of the modern mobile world, such as syncing messages between devices and bookmarking media playback on one device to resume on another. Does that last technique sound familiar? You might recall it being a cornerstone of the movie and podcast support that Apple has implemented since 2005. Despite reaching that far back into history, Motorola is just as eager to modernize the targeted hardware list to keep its complaints relevant — the current iPad, the iPhone 4S and other devices are at risk of a trade ban, posing more of a threat to Apple’s bottom line than the dust-covered (and near-finished) initial legal challenge from October 2010. Before coming to any conclusions, though, remember that the newer complaint isn’t likely to have any speedy resolution of its own. Past ITC cases have usually taken a year and a half to complete, which could leave most or all of today’s technology as another distant memory.

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops, Tablet PCs

Motorola’s latest ITC complaint against Apple targets newer iOS devices and Macs, messaging and sync originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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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