Displaying items by tag: Patent

Apple appears to have had a little bit of a set back in court yesterday as Judge Richard Posner (the same one that threw Apple’s complaint about a week ago) told Apple quite simply that imposing a sales ban on Motorola’s products would have catastrophic effects. This type of decision is happening more and more where one company demands a ban on the other. What the legal system is waking up to is that the ban on imports and sales are hurting businesses and the economy. They are also beginning to understand that the threat of a ban is not being used to protect IP, but to limit competition.

Time for the Google news (much like many of our combined reports of Apple’s doings). This time we have a couple of things to talk about. The first is the penultimate decision in the Google Vs Oracle case, followed by a complaint by the RIAA about how little Google is doing to flight piracy and rounding things out with a complaint against Microsoft and Nokia in the EU for patent trolling. Sounds like a lot of fun so let’s get started.

Although we have reported on many patent trials and covered quite a few legal messes (Samsung and Apple come to mind). There are not really that many that we have felt very strongly about one way or the other. We have our opinions about all of them, but in the end most suits are about money and leverage so even the losers will end up getting concessions. However, the Oracle Vs. Google patent/copyright case was one that had us more than a little interested.

Now one thing I do love is irony. Call it a little dark pleasure of mine. I do enjoy it when a larger company (one that might be a tab abusive) finds themselves following when they claim to be leading. I also enjoy it when these same companies (no matter who they are) find themselves caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Unfortunately I am talking about Apple again. This time from a purely speculative point though.

One of the all-time largest patent trolls RAMBUS (yes even bigger than apple) has finally settled a long running battle with nVidia and signed a licensing agreement with the GPU and SoC manufacturer. RAMBUS is famous for its underhanded dealings in the mid-90s when the company filed patents on technology that was being openly discussed at JDEC conferences.  RAMBUS then turned around and sued other members of the organization for violating their patent rights. The resulting legal battle made the Samsung Vs. Apple dispute look like a fight over the TV remote.

We have been saying that the tide is turning against Apple and its legal campaign to stomp out the competition. We have been hearing that Apple’s efforts to ban the Galaxy tab 10.1 in Australia were before the actual case could be heard were starting to decay, but now we have received the final confirmation that the ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been lifted and Samsung can begin selling the tablets in time for Christmas.

It looks like Samsung might be getting some vindication on the Ban imposed on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia. It appears that at least one Appeals Judge feels that the original ban might not have been fair. According to several articles on the Internet Federal Court Justice Lindsay Foster could be the saving grace for Samsung in their legal battles down under. The original ban was put in place as a temporary measure until a full trial could take place over what Apple calls “blatant copying”. Samsung, on the other hand, feels that the ban was unjust due to the large number of other tablets on the market with the same look and feel as the iPad. To prove their point they have produced video evidence showing off tablets from Motorola, Asus, Acer and others.  They feel that Apple is singling them out (in much the same way that Adobe was attacked by Apple over Flash).

I love it when the little guy wins and this really is a case of the little guy coming out on top. It seems that Apple would like to strengthen its strangle hold on the tablet market by almost any means necessary. As part of their campaign for global domination Apple went after a small Spanish tablet maker by the name of Nuevas Tecnologías y Energías Catalá or as you and I might know them NT-K. They are the designers/makers of an Android based tablet that admittedly looks a lot like the iPad at first glance. Because of this similarity (and because they had success in the EU and Australia against Samsung) Apple filed an indictment against NK-T and actually had shipments of their products seized by customs.

Because this was a customs ban for “copying” a product this caused NK-T to be temporarily put on a list of product pirates, which would cause an almost global ban on these products entering any country.Now Apple has used these tactics and the threat of these actions against other companies with success so they have gotten into something of a pattern. Apple fully expected NK-T to comply with their demands and stop manufacturing the competing product. When NK-T did not they sprang into action and filed their indictment against them.

Now in many other countries our story would have ended with the small company sadly having to stop making their product. However, this time the courts did not see things Apple’s way. In a ruling they found that Apple failed to prove criminal intent or their allegation of deliberate piracy. On top of that NK-T has filed a civil suit asking for damages done to their business and the name of their company. Furthermore they have filed a complaint with Spain’s regulatory body (the Comisión Nacional de la Competencia (CNC)) against Apple for abusive anticompetitive behavior. If this complaint goes through (and it has not been dropped) then it will set a precedent and one that could bolster the defenses/ complaints of other companies that are currently in the legal slime with Apple right now.

We are making attempts to find out more on this and will be following up as it progresses.

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I know that lot of people question that Apple is concerned about Samsung when the Korean Giant posts a down quarter despite increased phone sales. Well If you take a closer look at those reports you might notice that Samsung’s legal bills are getting quite high (think AMD here) due to the number of legal spats they are getting into with Apple (and a few other companies) over patents.  



So that that we understand where Samsung is and what is going on there then we are sure you will want to know who Apple’s next target is. In another time we might have considered Google as a likely target, but there is still too much between the companies to allow open warfare just yet. No, the next target on Apple’s list will be HTC. Not all that long ago HTC was almost unknown in the US and its handsets were bulky and unimaginative.  In the last few years, HTC has reinvented themselves and has released more than a few show stoppers. From the EVO 3D (the original EVO was something of a pig) through the Amaze 4G and right up to the Sensation. People are taking notice of HTC and buying their hardware. On top of the hardware is the popular SenseUI. This stylish skin for Android gives life to the basic ROM that Google ships out and to many people (myself included) it is a much cleaner UI than even Apple’s cherished iPhone.

It is all of this that enabled HTC to pull off a record setting $4.54 Billion (in US Dollars) quarter which is up 68% from the same quarter in 2010. Their net profit for the quarter was $625 Million (US Dollars). HTC also announced an increase in units shipped. For Q3 2011 they shipped 13.2 million units which is an increase of 93% over last same quarter 2010. So if you want to get an idea of who might be next on Apple’s hit list, just look at the figures above and then factor in HTC relatively weak patent portfolio and low cash reserves. It is an equation that we are sure has the Apple legal team salivating while looking for that one opening… maybe it will be slide to lock this time.

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It is a sad day when our lawmakers call a bill designed to trample innovation “reform”, but this is what has happened with the latest version of the “America Invents” act. The new bill has just passed the Senate and is expected to be signed into Law by President Obama in the near future. Now you might be wondering what I am talking about with this new bill. The new bill sponsored by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy has been lobbied for by the big corporations like Microsoft, Apple and others that tend to use concept patents as weapons to stifle competition instead of real and working inventions. These same companies also tend to “borrow” ideas, names and concepts from different places (like Apples use of the name iPhone which was owned by Cisco at the time).  

What Apple and others have asked for (and gotten) is a change from first-to-invent to first-to-file. Basically what is happening here is that you do not actually have to produce anything anymore. All you have to have is a mountain of lawyers that can force any “concept” you want through the patent office.  On top of all of that they have gotten a flat fee for Patents (although the fee is not actually known yet) which (so far) the Patent Office will get most of. However, that could change as Congress has a way of dipping into this money (having diverted about $900 Million in the last couple of years).  They did tack on a review process for people to dispute patent that have been granted, but the time window for this is only 90 days from the date it is granted. Really the window should be more like one year, but that will never happen.  There were some attempts to make this a real reform bill; some were asking for an outright ban on any diversion of funds, but the Bill’s sponsor said that anything like that would make the bill unlikely to pass (which shows you where some minds in Congress are). Some members of Congress are crowing as if they have just made sweeping reform when all they have done is encourage patent trolling.  

Source PCWold

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