Hasta La Gadget!

What, you didn’t think Apple was just going to sit around and take it after Motorola first sued for patent infringement and then asked to court to declare some 20 of Cupertino’s patents weren’t applicable to its products, did you? Apple’s fired back with two lawsuits claiming that Motorola’s Android phones, including but not limited to the Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour A555, Devour i1, and Charm, infringe a total of six multitouch and OS patents. That would be pretty much par for the course — you sue me, I sue you — but there are a couple interesting strategic wrinkles to note:

• We’ve only seen Apple litigate one of these patents before: #7,479,949, Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics. You should remember it well — it’s the patent covering scroll behavior on multitouch screens that was hyped as “the iPhone patent” and triggered a press frenzy over a possible Apple / Palm lawsuit. As we predicted at the time, that hasn’t yet materialized, but old ‘949’s gotten pretty popular: Apple’s asserting it against Nokia and HTC as well.
• Apple might be suing over six patents in these two cases, but ultimately Apple will claiming Motorola’s devices infringe a total of 26 patents — part of Apple’s defense to Motorola’s 20-patent lawsuit will be to claim that Moto’s in fact infringing each of those patents. That’s a lot of patents across a lot of devices, and it’ll just take one finding of infringement to cause a lot of pain.
• Apple’s filed its two cases in the Western District of Wisconsin, a patent “rocket docket” that tries cases quickly and are often perceived as being plaintiff-friendly. (Part of the Apple / Nokia lawsuit is happening in this same court.) Moto’s obvious next move will be to try and consolidate all these cases into a single proceeding at one court, a procedural tactic that will take likely take months. And that’s just the first step. Don’t expect these cases to be decided for at least a year — probably many years — unless Apple and Motorola decide to settle, which is always possible.
• Apple’s now seriously engaged in litigation with the two largest Android handset makers (HTC and Motorola), largely over OS-level patents. At some point Google has to get involved, if only to indemnify its partners against further liability for using Android, and we can’t help but think Apple and Google are eventually bound to face off directly. Or perhaps not — by suing Android handset makers, Apple’s essentially putting a tax on Android without having to further muddy up its complex competitor / partner relationship with Google by adding in a major lawsuit.

We’ve added in a list of the patents after the break, if you’re interested — and we know you’re interested, right? It’s not like it’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon or anything.

Continue reading Apple sues Motorola right back over six patents

Apple sues Motorola right back over six patents originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boom: Apple was just awarded a patent on pinch-to-zoom for multitouch displays. That’s the first directly applicable patent we’ve seen on the gesture since we first started looking during the Apple / Palm war of words in January 2009, and it certainly gives Apple some potent ammunition against its competitors — although there are some specific limitations on what Apple’s been granted that will prove to be important. Let’s break it down, shall we? Patent #7,812,826 was first applied for on December 29, 2006, and over the course of the patent process the claims have been significantly narrowed to cover a very specific set of actions:

1. A multitouch display detects at least two contacts.
2. Those contacts perform a first gesture.
3. That gesture adjusts an image in some way: magnification, orientation and rotation are specifically claimed, but the patent is broad enough to cover virtually any adjustment.
4. The first set of contacts is broken.
5. A second set of contacts is detected.
6. The second contacts perform another gesture within a pre-determined period of time.
7. The gesture continues to adjust the image in the same way.

It’s steps 5, 6, and 7 that are critically important here: Apple doesn’t have a patent on “pinch-to-zoom” generally, but rather pinching to zoom, and then pinching to zoom again within some fixed period of time. How long that period lasts is totally up in the air, but it has to be defined somewhere — this patent doesn’t really apply unless there’s a clock running and a second gesture takes place. Still, it’s the first granted patent on the now-ubiquitous gesture we’ve seen, and based on its filing history it’s essentially effective as of December 30, 2005 — long before anything multitouch products with pinch to zoom had arrived on the market. That’s no small weapon to bear — we’ll see what Apple does with it.

P.S.- Apple was also awarded some 17 other patents yesterday, including two more that deal with multitouch, but none of ’em are nearly as interesting as this one. Hit the via link for more on those.

Apple awarded limited patent on pinch-to-zoom originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, we’ve been to this rodeo before… kind of. If you’ll recall, prisons have had one heck of a time getting the Feds to sign off on a new law that would allow cellphone jamming equipment to be installed on their premises, and due to a 1934 law that allows only federal agencies to jam public airways, they’ve had little choice but to sit and wait. A bill is resting in the House right now that would allow pilot jamming programs to commence, but given that it’s unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon, South Carolina’s prison director (Jon Ozmint) is eying something else. In fact, he’s already trying something else. A “managed access” trial has begun in the Palmetto State (as well as Mississippi), which routes mobile calls originating in the prison to a third-party provider that check’s each number to see if it’s on a whitelist; if it doesn’t make the cut, the call is blocked. Jon’s still pushing for jamming, but it looks as if this second-rate system may just be good enough to convince most criminals to stop trying to reach the outside world. Or at least add yet another level of frustration to their lives.

[Image courtesy of Wired]

‘Managed access’ trial screens prison phone calls without jamming the airwaves originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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C’mon, let’s all color ourselves shocked at once. It’ll be fun. We promise. If you’ve been calling the underside of a rock home for the past decade or so, you may have missed out on a Chinese outfit by the name of Meizu. For all intents and purposes, the company has done its darnedest to copy Apple in every respect, particularly with the software on its M8 and M9 smartphones. Strangely, we’ve never actually heard confirmation that Cupertino’s best lawyers were breathing down Meizu’s neck… until now. As the story goes, Meizu CEO Jack Wong’s forum postings have been rather tense of late, and one in particular seems to explain why: Apple’s all up in his grille. The details are hidden beneath a good bit of pent-up rage, but what is clear is a mention of Apple’s lawyers and their “unreasonable negotiation tactics.” In essence, Jack finds it absurd that Apple could claim rights to the touchscreen smartphone form factor, and while Apple could only serve a relative few in China, he (obviously) expects Meizu to serve far more. We won’t pretend to be sad on Jack’s behalf — we mean, the guy had it coming — but we can’t shake the looming depression when thinking of a world with no future Meizu devices to chuckle at.

Apple’s lawyers finally going after Meizu, or so it seems originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 11:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Still trying to get up to speed on the whole net neutrality situation? Check out the intro above for a recap of the basics — it ran during the last Engadget Show as part of our interview with Columbia law professor and noted net neutrality advocate Tim Wu. Then, head after the break for both cuts of the interview — the edited piece that aired with the show and the uncut half-hour version. If you’ve got the time we highly recommend the full-flavor edition — it’s seriously interesting stuff, and Tim’s not afraid to speak his mind on one of the most important tech issues of our time.

Update: And here’s a downloadable copy, for those who were asking.

Continue reading Engadget explains net neutrality — and our full interview with Professor Tim Wu!

Engadget explains net neutrality — and our full interview with Professor Tim Wu! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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