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HP Settles Inkjet Patent Dispute

Paul Lilly — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:36:34 -0500

Hewlett Packard on Thursday said it has reached a "substantial resolution" in the patent case, with the International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling in HP's favor.

HP's dispute involved 11 companies, each of which was accused of importing into the U.S. and selling patent-infringing products.

Two of the companies -- InkPlusToner.com and Comptree Ink --entered into a settlement agreement with HP in which they will no longer sell the disputed cartridges and pay HP an undisclosed sum of money. A settlement with a third company is expected, and a fourth company agreed to stop importing the disputed cartridges. As for the remaining companies, a judge entered default judgments against them.

"HP is pleased with the outcome on these matters, and remains committed to vigorously pursuing legal enforcement against practices that do not respect HP’s IP rights," said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president, Inkjet and Web Services Business, Imaging and Printing Group, HP.

HTC Ready to Defend Against Apple's Patent Suit

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:14:40 -0500

Android is on the upswing, having become the fastest growing smartphone platform among its contemporaries in the U.S market. While it has a fair distance to go before it can overtake the Apple iPhone, it is more a question of when than if, given the speed of its ascent.

But Apple can be expected to pull out all the stops to retain its comfortable lead over its younger rival. Earlier this month, it dragged Taiwanese phone maker HTC to court, alleging that its Android phones infringe nearly 20 of its patents. It wants a ban on the import of all such HTC handsets that infringe the iPhone-related patents.

Although HTC is yet to officially respond in court, the phone maker from the Far East has finally broken its silence over the lawsuit. It should not surprise anyone that HTC disagrees with Apple's claims and remains unfazed. It has vowed to “fully defend” itself.

“HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation.

The press release appears to be a reminder of HTC's ability to innovate to anyone who doubts it. It quite proudly points out “HTC’s technology firsts” that include the first Windows PDA (1998), first 3G CDMA EVDO smartphone (October 2005), first Google Android smartphone and first 4G WIMAX smartphone (November 2008).

Movies on Your iPhone? Apple Buys Several Projector-Related Patents

Paul Lilly — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:13:53 -0500

We've known for some time that Apple would like to cram a projector into its next iPhone, but are they on track to really do so? It looks that way, at least according to a handful of patents Apple has applied for.

The latest projector-related patent seems to describe a few different types of projection systems, including one in which a projector could be shared simultaneously by several devices over a wireless network.

"According to Apple's patent, the projector could be integrated into a dedicated remote controller associated with the projection system or it could be offered as an auxiliary client device such as an iPhone, iPod touch, or laptop," PatentlyApple.com writes.

What exactly Apple is up to remains a mystery, if not an intriguing one. In one of the pictures Apple provides, you see what looks like an iPhone attached to Nintendo's Wii console and beaming the gaming action on the wall. This is just one of many examples, all of which you can see here.

Microsoft Loses Appeal (Again), i4i Notches Another Legal Victory

Paul Lilly — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:22:31 -0600

More bad news for Microsoft, who again was found guilty of willfully infringing on i4i's patents, this time by the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals.

Microsoft is quickly running out of avenues. This latest verdict is the second time an appeals court affirmed i4i's patent win, which requires Redmond to fork over more than $240 million in damages, as well as remove a feature in versions of Microsoft Word 2007 that lets people create custom XML documents.

"A reasonable jury could have concluded that Microsoft 'willfully' infringed the 449 patents based on the evidence present at the trial," the judges wrote. "Similarly, there is no evidence Microsoft ever made a good faith effort to avoid infringement, internal emails show Microsoft intended to render i4i's product 'obsolete' and assure 'there won't be a need for [i4i's] product.'"

So is it time to throw in the towel? Not quite. According to InfoWorld.com, the panel will now circulate the document to the rest of the judges on the appeals court, who will then decide whether honor Microsoft's request for an en banc review. If the request is approved, all 12 appeals court judges will reconsider the case.

"From our perspective, there are only so many more avenues for appeals for them," said Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i.

SanDisk Abandons Patent Lawsuit Against Transcend

Paul Lilly — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:11:19 -0600

Transcend can now focus all of its attention on putting out products rather than worrying about defending itself in court. That's because the memory maker said it has received notification from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin that rival SanDisk has withdrawn its patent infringement lawsuit.

The suit dates back to October 2007 when SanDisk went on a suing spree, accusing 25 companies of patent infringement through three separate lawsuits. These were all companies that either made, sold, or imported USB flash drives and other memory related products.

SanDisk had sought both damages and a permanent exclusion order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) banning importation of the products in the U.S.

It's unclear whether SanDisk dropped its patent suit against all 25 companies or just Transcend.

Image Credit: Flickr Joe Gratz

IBM Pushes for Patent Reform

Paul Lilly — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:36:04 -0600

Most would probably agree that the patent system in the U.S. is busted and could use an overhaul. What's surprising, however, is that IBM would push for change, yet that's actually what Big Blue is doing.

IBM, which for the 17th consecutive year earned the most U.S. patents of any company with 4,914 and holds more than 30,000 altogether, said it is endorsing the compromise on U.S. patent reform legislation announced by Senate leaders.

"The leadership of Senators Leahy, Sessions and others has forged a compromise bill that works for all members of the intellectual property community and represents real progress on patent reform," said Robert Weber, senior vice president, Legal and Regulatory Affairs and General Counsel, IBM. "Modernizing the patent system, as outlined in this bill, will protect inventors and promote innovation."

According to IBM, the first significant update to the nation's patent laws in more than 50 years would bolster American competitiveness in the global economy and help stimulate innovation. We agree, we just didn't expect to hear it from IBM.

Apple Fires Opening Shots in Smartphone Patent War

Bart Salisbury — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:07:26 -0600

What fun would the tech world be without its patent lawsuits to keep us amused? Not wanting to disappoint us, Apple has opened up another round of patent lawsuits, taking direct aim at potential competitor HTC, alleging violation of twenty Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface and underlying architecture and hardware.

In a statement that sounds all too familiar, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” Reminiscent of its current battle with Nokia, Apple will fight this one out concurrently in the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

Is Apple out only to curb the ambitions of HTC? TechCrunch speculates that the real target might be Android, which mimics many of the characteristic features of the iPhone OS. In which case, TechCrunch surmises, this is but a “shot across Android’s bow and a warning to all Android manufacturers.”

Image Credit: Apple, HTC, Google

Facebook Awarded "News Feed" Patent

Bart Salisbury — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:31:13 -0600

What it means, exactly, isn’t clear. But what it could mean is trouble for social networking. Facebook has been granted a patent on the Newsfeed--the method it uses for “displaying a news feed in a social network environment.” A method which looks amazingly similar to something that all other social networking sites do.

The questions raised are: What does the patent describe? And what does the patent cover? From the patent’s abstract we learn this: “The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items.” Graphically, (from Figure 5 of the patent application), this looks like this:

Overall, it seems general enough to cover a lot of social networking activity, which could be a problem. A generous interpretation of the patent would give Facebook tremendous control over social networking.

While it is possible, according to Nick O’Neill at All Facebook, that the patent could be as significant as the original six degrees patent, he’s guessing it probably won’t be. While the patent seems to describe what takes place on Twitter, for example, O’Neill explains that it “appears that this patent surrounds implicit actions. This means status updates, which is what Twitter is based on, are not part of this patent. Instead, this is about stories about the actions of a user’s friends.” Maybe too fine a distinction of us to appreciate, perhaps, but O’Neill says the distinction is significant and could mean a lessening the patent’s potential impact.

Image Credit: Facebook