patents

Maija Palmer Nokia wins patent victory over IPCom

April 25, 2012 7:52 pm by Maija Palmer

The complexity – one is tempted to say complete muddle – of the European patent system was highlighted on Wednesday when Nokia and HTC won a key victory in their intellectual property battle with IPCom.

IPCom, which is based in Germany,  has waged a battle for several years to get mobile handset companies to pay it royalties for some technology it owns related to how mobile phones connect to 3G networks. Some handset makers have bought licences from IPCom, but Nokia and HTC strongly denied the validity of the patents and refused to pay up. Read more

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Posted in Europe, Hardware, Telecoms |

Richard Waters Netscape’s ignominious end: Swallowed by Microsoft

April 9, 2012 8:55 pm by Richard Waters

Microsoft just wrote the final chapter in a historic rivalry that defined the early years of the Web – and which became Exhibit A in its anti-trust showdown with the US government.

We hear that the legal remains of Netscape – along with its patents – have just been traded to Microsoft by AOL as part of a landmark $1.1bn deal. More than a decade after it was vanquished in the browser wars, Netscape really does seem to be worth more dead than alive. Read more

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Posted in Internet, Tech |

Richard Waters How Facebook built its legal defence against Yahoo

April 3, 2012 10:42 pm by Richard Waters

Two researchers from Dutch electronics group Philips, a professor at New York University, an independent inventor in San Jose – and a certain Mark Zuckerberg.

These are some of the people whose assembled brainpower Facebook has drawn on to defend itself against Yahoo’s patent infringement case. If successful, it will count as one of the most effective legal defences mounted by a young internet concern that until recently had little in the way of patent reserves to draw on. Read more

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Posted in Internet, Tech |

Richard Waters Has the patent lottery gone cold?

January 24, 2012 1:55 am by Richard Waters

Six months ago, we called it the Great Patent Bubble: when wireless tech company InterDigital (almost all of whose value resides in its patents) put itself up for sale, it capped a threefold rise that saw $2.5bn added to its stock market value.

Monday’s news that the InterDigital sale has been called off suggests that the bubble is deflating. Read more

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Posted in Tech |

Joseph Menn Apple could face product bans in Germany

December 9, 2011 11:55 pm by Joseph Menn

Apple had a bad week in its multi-front patent war, capped by the real possibility of an iPhone and iPad import ban in Germany. Read more

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Posted in Consumer Electronics, Hardware, Mobile, Tech |

Richard Waters The patent wars and the revenge of WAP

September 1, 2011 2:10 am by Richard Waters

The fortunes of Openwave, one of the early pioneers of mobile internet access, faded after the first burst of excitement over WAP technology passed nearly a decade ago. Amidst the mobile industry’s patent wars, though, it may still have a sting its tail. Read more

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Posted in Mobile, Tech |

Maija Palmer Android patent war hurts Gemalto

August 31, 2011 7:00 pm by Maija Palmer

gemalto imageThe disruption suffered by companies in the recent spate of technology patent wars became apparent last week when Gemalto, the French smartcard company, revealed a €13.5m shortfall in its patents revenue, following a dispute with makers of Android smartphones.

The Paris-based company launched a suit against Google, Motorola, HTC and Samsung last October, alledging that they had used Gemalto’s smartcard technology in Android devices without a licence. Read more

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Posted in Hardware, Mobile, Telecoms |

Richard Waters Patent wars turn to name-calling

August 4, 2011 11:18 pm by Richard Waters

The mud-slinging between Microsoft and Google over Wednesday’s outspoken Google blog post about the patent wars has continued almost unabated. And as always in cases like this, both sides come out of it worse off. Read more

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Posted in Tech |

Richard Waters Google comes out swinging on patents

August 4, 2011 1:12 am by Richard Waters

David Drummond, Google’s top lawyer, has just issued the search company’s most outspoken denunciation yet of rivals who have laid legal siege to Android.

The barrage of lawsuits is nothing less than “a hostile, organized campaign … by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents,” he says. Read more

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Posted in Mobile, Tech |
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