Hasta La Gadget!

Apple is suing Motorola, Samsung and HTC; they’re all suing Apple back. RIM and Kodak are suing each other. Kodak is suing Apple. Sony is suing LG. Microsoft is suing FoxConn and Barnes and Noble. Oracle is suing Google. More »

While Microsoft is busy readying the much talked about Windows 8 for release, a new patent application has popped up that could reveal even bigger — or at least faster — things to come. According to the filing for “Fast Machine Booting Through Streaming Storage,” which was submitted in February of last year and released last week, Redmond is looking at creating a system that could stream an entire OS to just about anything with a screen. The proposed setup would enlist a series of storage devices, both remote and local, to act as a virtual hard disk, allowing anything from a set top box to a tablet to boot almost instantaneously. We don’t know about you, but we’ve already started a list of ways to spend the extra seconds.

[Thanks, Bogen]

Microsoft patent application points to fast-booting streaming OS originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Aug 2011 06:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sweet jumping jehosaphat, the patent suit madness just won’t end. Only a month after the ITC sided with Apple and HTC offered a standard-issue plea for cooperation, the Taiwanese company has filed its own infringement complaint against the Cupertino crew. This isn’t the first suit brought by HTC against Apple, and we’re sure it won’t be the last. In fact, the two have a long history of engaging in the most common form of competition for smartphone makers. (Why let your products do the talking when you have high-priced lawyers on retainer?) The three patents at the heart of the complaint cover not just the iPhone and iPad, but also the company’s computer line — in particular WiFi networking features and the combination of PDA and cellphone functionality. You can check out the patents in question at the more coverage links and you’ll find PR right after the break.

Continue reading HTC drags on the patent war, files yet another complaint against Apple

HTC drags on the patent war, files yet another complaint against Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google must work hard to convince its partner manufacturers that its new relationship with Motorola will not compromise its others.  Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Google’s always been happy to stay in the software business, which has suited gadget companies just fine. They’ve all benefited from Google’s willingness to license Android to anyone. But today’s announcement that the tech titan plans to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings will make them wonder if Google is about to start playing favorites.

A lot of companies — HTC chief among them — have profited nicely with handsets running Google’s free Android operating system. But the news that Google is getting into the hardware business won’t win it any points among its hardware manufacturing partners, and it could provide an opening to competing platform owners like Microsoft.

“It’s difficult to be a Switzerland and provide software to these companies, while on the other hand go head-to-head with them,” John McCarthy, an analyst with Forrester, told Wired.com. “Google is taking a big risk here, and the company is going to have to work very, very hard to convince these other OEM’s [original equipment manufacturers] that the ground is level.”

Since 2008, Google has allowed manufacturers to license its Android mobile operating platform for their own devices. Companies like the fast-rising HTC have made boatloads of cash from Google’s foray into mobile. Sony Ericsson and LG, to name two others, similarly want to cash in on handset profits.

Typically, Google has used what Android chief Andy Rubin calls the “Nexus Program” model in dealing with hardware partners. Each year around Christmas, Google offers a gadget maker, a chip company and other product specialists early access to the latest iteration of Android. Everyone will “huddle together in one building, and around the holidays a new device pops out,” Rubin said in a conference call Monday morning. That process will continue, Rubin said.

“Moto will be a separate business and part of that bidding process,” he said.

In other words, don’t expect Motorola to get preferential treatment.

It’s a promise that Motorola Mobility’s hardware rivals are accepting at face value, at least publicly.

“We are supportive of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, as this is a positive development to the Android ecosystem, which we believe is beneficial to HTC’s promotion of Android phones,” HTC told Wired.com in a statement. “The partnership between HTC and Google remains strong and will not be affected by this acquisition.”

In a collection of quotes gathered by Google itself, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and other companies used eerily similar language in praise of the acquisition, welcoming — as LG put it — Google’s “commitment to defending Android and its partners.”

But industry experts are skeptical that the partnerships will continue unharmed.

“It’s an incredibly awkward position for Google in terms of other manufacturers” said Gartner analyst Phillip Redman. “The complications of trying to run a hardware business are countless.”

“By entering into the hardware business, Google risks significantly weakening other OEMs’ commitment to the Android platform going forward,” Forrester analyst Charles Golvin wrote in a blog post today.

That could create an opportunity for other software companies, particularly HP — which will soon begin licensing its webOS software — and, of course, Microsoft and its Windows Phone 7 system.

“Product strategists at Samsung, LG and HTC are certain to revisit their Windows Phone hedge strategy,” Golvin wrote.

It is ironic that Motorola was the one Google chose for acquisition, given Motorola’s once-questionable commitment to Android. There were rumors that Motorola hired former Apple and Adobe engineers to develop an alternative web-based operating system, according to Information Week. Even Motorola software and services VP Christy Wyatt told Wired.com in February that Motorola wasn’t “religious” about its commitment to Android.

But the acquisition most likely was a play for Motorola’s trove of patents — somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 to 17,000 overall — that could protect Google from a multitude of future intellectual-property lawsuits, much like the Lodsys headache and Apple-Microsoft-Oracle lawsuit extravaganza that Google is navigating even now. Popular opinion suggests Google isn’t in it for the hardware.

At least, not primarily.

Google has intervened in an ongoing intellectual property dispute between smartphone application developers and a patent-holding firm, Wired.com has learned, marking the Mountain View company’s first public move to defend Android coders from a patent troll lawsuit that’s cast a pall on the community.

The company says it filed a request with the United States Patent and Trademark office Friday for reexamination of two patents asserted by East Texas-based patent firm Lodsys. Google’s request calls for the USPTO to assess whether or not the patents’ claims are valid.

“We’ve asked the US Patent Office to reexamine two Lodsys patents that we believe should never have been issued,” Google senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker told Wired.com in a statement. “Developers play a critical part in the Android ecosystem and Google will continue to support them.”

Lodsys is currently suing 11 smartphone app developers for allegedly infringing the two patents, U.S. 7,222,078 and 7,620,565. Lodsys claims its patents cover the use of in-app payments technology, which allows users to carry out transactions within the context of an app itself. Countless app developers use in-app payments technology in their applications.

Lodsys CEO Mark Small did not respond to an e-mail, and the company did not immediately respond to a telephone inquiry from Wired.com on Friday evening, after Google filed its request.

If Google’s request for reexamination is granted, it could end up saving the developers and development studios — many of whom are composed of a handful of staffers — from large litigation fees.

“Reexaminations are often times a tool used to stay ongoing litigation,” said Julie Samuels, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights advocacy group. “It’s much, much cheaper than federal litigation, which on average costs between two and five million dollars.”

Since Lodsys first began targeting application developers months ago, the patent saga has been long and messy. The firm originally dispatched a series of cease and desist letters to iOS and Android app developers in May. The letters threatened legal action within a 21 day period if developers did not negotiate to pay Lodsys a licensing fee for the use of the technology. The company is now suing 11 defendants, ranging from small app development studios to major game companies like Atari, Square Enix and Electronic Arts.

Dan Abelow, the former owner of the patents who sold them in 2004, told Wired.com he was unable to comment on the matter.

Lodsys’ actions are what many intellectual property experts refer to as “patent trolling” — the practice of using patents for little else outside of suing other companies for damages or coaxing them into licensing agreements.

Both Google and Apple have licenses for Lodsys’ patents, so Lodsys has been going after third-party developers instead. But the potential impact on Apple and Google is clear enough. Whether or not Lodsys wins its lawsuit, the threat of potential litigation for iOS and Android developers may cause them to think twice before creating apps for the two mobile platforms.

“In this case, the strategic interest of Apple and Google is to make app developers happy, or at least comfortable,” said Florian Mueller, an intellectual property analyst who has covered the lawsuit exhaustively in his blog. (Defendants Rovio and Illusion Labs declined comment.)

But despite the fact that two Android developers were named as defendants — Rovio, the Finnish development studio behind Angry Birds, and Illusion Labs, a Swedish company that produces the game Labyrinth — Google has remained conspicuously quiet on the issue until now, rankling many in the development community.

Apple, in contrast, has attempted to insert itself into the Lodsys lawsuit on behalf of developers. On Monday, Apple filed a brief claiming it has the right to intervene in the case because Apple provides the in-app billing technology to its developers and retains its own license for the patents in question. Therefore, Apple argues, its license extends to coders who use Apple’s technologies as well.

Google’s request for reexamination is the company’s first major public action backing up its developer community. If a reexamination is granted, the patents in question could be amended to the extent that they won’t affect developers.

“It’s rare that an entire patent is invalidated through the USPTO,” said Samuels. “More likely is that the claim of the patent will be narrowed.”

Google confirmed they filed this request “inter partes,” which essentially means Google will be involved in the precedings throughout the entire process.

“Inter partes requests are usually more thorough,” said Samuels. Ninety-five percent of “inter partes” reexamination requests filed since 1999 have been granted by the USPTO.

Of course, even if the USPTO grants the reexamination request, there’s no guarantee that the court will grant a stay.

“Courts have inconsistent track records of granting stays of litigation,” Samuels said. Especially in the eastern district of Texas — home to a federal court that is often favorable to patent litigation plaintiffs — where the lawsuit was filed. Eastern district courts grant motions to stay litigation pending reexamination around 20 percent of the time, according to a 2009 study conducted by Matthew Smith, senior counsel at Foley and Lardner LLP.

That could complicate things for the developer defendants, and potentially continue to cost them money for ongoing litigation expenses.

Still, Google’s request marks an entirely different strategy than Apple’s, and could potentially pay off for all parties involved.

Except, of course, for Lodsys.