Hasta La Gadget!

Looks like settlement negotiations in the various Nokia / Apple patent lawsuits aren’t going too well — Espoo’s just hit Cupertino with a second federal patent lawsuit, this time alleging the iPad 3G and iPhone infringe five patents related to “enhanced speech and data transmission, using positioning data in applications and innovations in antenna configurations that improve performance and save space, allowing smaller and more compact devices.” Interestingly, Nokia’s filed this one in the Western District of Wisconsin, a so-called “rocket docket” that’s well-known for bringing patent cases to settlement or trial in just over a year. That means we could see some real movement in this dispute within our lifetimes, but we’re not holding our breath for a definitive conclusion — by our count, Apple and Nokia now have some five pending legal actions between them, including one that’s been placed on hold pending an ITC decision. Anyone want to bet how long it takes for Apple to add another countersuit to the mix?

Nokia sues Apple again, says the iPad 3G infringes five patents originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 May 2010 11:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony forced PS3 owners into a tough decision with the mandatory 3.21 firmware update: either lose online play, or forgo Linux support. On Tuesday, Anthony Ventura chose door number three — and filed a lawsuit in California, asking the judge for class-action status. The complaint quotes Sony executives on numerous occasions saying how vital and important the “Install Other OS” feature was to the game console (it’s a computer, remember?) and claims breach of contract, false advertising, and several other causes of action against the entertainment giant. Sure, a lawsuit was bound to happen, given the number of angry PS3 owners out there, but here’s the thing: there’s no telling whether the court will grant a class-action certification here, and even if the case gets that far it’s pretty unlikely to force Sony to turn the feature back on — instead, customers will probably receive a token amount in damages while the lawyers get their full fees. For example, a rare, successful class-action suit against Palm — filed in 2004 — got Treo 600 owners only $27.50 in store credit, five years later. Meanwhile, we hear European PS3 owners just have to ask for their money back — which, we promise you, is the fastest way to put an end to your Linux-based PS3 nightmares. Either that, or just wait for Geohot to make it all better.

Sony taken to court over PS3 ‘Other OS’ removal originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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About, oh — four years ago — a little Texas company called Anascape sued Nintendo and Microsoft for ostensibly violating its controller patents. Microsoft settled. Nintendo didn’t. Anascape won. One $21 million judgment, two years and countless legal bills later, Nintendo has finally emerged victorious over the patent troll. This week, a Federal Circuit Court overturned two earlier decisions, ruling that Nintendo’s GameCube, WaveBird and Wii Classic Controllers don’t violate Anascape’s six-degrees-of-freedom patent, because Anascape only added that 6DOF claim to its patent in 2000… making Sony’s original DualShock controller — released in 1998 — prior art. Game, set, match.

Nintendo escapes patent troll in appeals court — thanks to Sony originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like someone at Microsoft should be paying slightly more attention to the mail: an ophthalmologist (yes, that’s right) in Illinois named Edward Yavitz is suing Redmond over the Zune’s Buy From FM feature, saying he wrote the software giant a letter in 2006 that disclosed his two relevant patents on the tech, suggested how it could be integrated into the Zune, and asked for a deal. Two years and presumably zero replies later, a young Joe Belfiore introduced Buy From FM along with the Zune 3.0 software, which Ed says directly infringes on his patents — and his lawsuit, filed ten days ago, asks the court to permanently stop sales of the Zune and award him triple damages in cash. Oops. We haven’t dived too deeply into the patents themselves, but it looks like Ed’s going to have a bit of a fight on his hands here, as the patents seem to describe systems that have preloaded content about music that’s then accessed when a data trigger is received over the air, not just storing song information for later purchase over the Internet. We’re sure the good doctor’s attorneys have some high-powered arguments to the contrary, so we’ll withhold judgment and see where this all leads — we’re guessing a quick settlement is in the cards, as fighting Microsoft might end up actually costing more than any percentage of royalties on total sales of the Zune.

P.S.- If you’re wondering why Apple hasn’t been named for its similar iTunes Tagging feature… well, so are we. We’ll see what happens.

Microsoft facing patent lawsuit over Zune Buy From FM feature originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As you may have heard, Viacom and YouTube have been having a little tift lately, in the form of a major lawsuit by the former over copyrighted material posted on the video portal. It’s a lawsuit that, according to YouTube, will cause such video sites to “cease to exist in the current form” — but more importantly, it’s a lawsuit that leads to some rather hilarious behind-the-scenes details. Here’s a really juicy one that the official YT blog published today by Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine. Word has it that Viacom had hired over the years at least 18 different marketing firms to inconspicuously upload content. We can’t really say it better than the posting:

“[Viacom] deliberately “roughed up” the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom.”

Wait, it gets better. According to Levine, Viacom’s tactics were so good that the company itself didn’t even know which videos it had uploaded, prompting multiple occasions where it would demand a clip removed, only to later ask for its reinstatement. “In fact,” she claims, “some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.” Hit up the source link for all the details. Honestly, we can’t wait to see what else is dug up in these proceedings.

Update: Of course, that’s not the whole story. Also revealed in court documents today was discussions by Viacom to — get this — purchase YouTube before News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch got the chance to do it himself. Let’s be thankful for that judge’s decision to unseal all court documents, shall we?

YouTube: Viacom would demand removal of videos it covertly uploaded itself originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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