Taiwanese university claims Apple’s Siri infringes its patents
A Taiwanese university has sued Apple for alleged patent infringement in its Siri voice assistant, as part of an initiative to help Taiwan's local electronic firms fight back against intellectual property disputes brought by their foreign rivals.
Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University alleged in the lawsuit, filed in a U.S. district court on Friday, that Apple's Siri feature infringes on two of the school's U.S. patents dealing with speech recognition technology. The university is demanding Apple pay a still undetermined amount in damages, and that the court order an injunction on Apple's use of Siri as a feature on its iPhones and iPads.
The school filed the legal action in response to repeated patent infringement lawsuits that foreign companies have filed against Taiwan's electronic firms, according to Chen Xisan, the director of the school's legal department. Apple has for example filed legal action against HTC, which recently saw shipments of its smartphones to the U.S. delayed because of the patent battles.
"We want to help the local industry," Chen said in an interview. "We also want to protect Taiwan's patents from being infringed upon."
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Read more...
HTC files counterclaims against Apple with two acquired patents
HTC has filed a counterclaim before a court in Florida stating that Apple has infringed on two of its patents, originally assigned to Hewlett-Packard and Electronic Data Systems, a company that HP acquired in 2008.
The Taiwanese phone maker is being sued for patent infringement by Apple in the court along with Motorola Mobility.
HTC claimed in a filing on Tuesday to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida it has been assigned all rights, title and interest of U.S. Patent No. 7,571,221 (the '221 patent) entitled "Installation of network services in an embedded network server," which was assigned to HP. Read more...
Facebook fires back at Yahoo, says it infringed 10 patents
Facebook has denied Yahoo's claims of patent infringement and shot back with counterclaims that Yahoo infringed 10 Facebook patents.
In its response to Yahoo's patent infringement suit filed on Tuesday, Facebook accuses Yahoo of infringing 10 of its patents in several of Yahoo's most popular services including the Yahoo homepage, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, and the Flickr photo sharing service. Read more...
Facebook reportedly buys IBM patents
Facebook has reportedly acquired patents from IBM, a move that could help it shore up defenses against new patent infringement lawsuits ahead of its IPO.
The social networking company confirmed the purchase, and said the patents cover software and networking technologies, The New York Times reported on Thursday. Facebook did not disclose how much it paid for the patents or the patent numbers. Bloomberg reported earlier in the day, citing an unnamed source, that Facebook acquired 750 patents from IBM. Read more...
ITC rules in Apple’s favor in HTC mobile patent dispute
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on Friday issued a final determination that Apple doesn't infringe certain HTC patents related to smartphones. HTC makes devices based on Google's Android mobile operating system that compete with Apple's iPhone.
The ruling was made on a complaint that HTC filed with the ITC following a complaint lodged by Apple last year. HTC accused Apple of selling products that violate its patents relating to power-management methods and phone-number directories. Read more...
Are Motorola’s patents enough to protect Android?
Google's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility will land it a vast portfolio of patents, but the legal obstacles facing its Android operating system are far from over, legal experts said.
Android has been beset with legal challenges from all sides, including a multibillion dollar lawsuit filed by Oracle, and complaints brought by Apple against Android device makers including HTC and Samsung. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been extracting license fees from Android device makers, saying it owns technology patents related to Google's mobile OS.
The Motorola acquisition, announced Monday, should help shield Google and its partners from future legal action by Apple and others. But it may be too late to help device makers facing lawsuits already under way, and it won't help Google to fight Oracle's Java patent infringement lawsuit, which is due to begin trial in October, legal experts said. Read more...
Google claims Microsoft improperly showed Android code to expert
Google asked the USITC (U.S. International Trade Commission) yesterday to block the testimony of a Microsoft expert witness in the latter's 10-month-old action against Motorola over patents allegedly used by Android.
In a motion filed with the ITC Wednesday, Google asked that Robert Stevenson, an expert hired by Microsoft, be barred from testifying about the Android source code at an upcoming hearing because Microsoft violated a confidentiality agreement struck between Microsoft, Motorola, and Google.
According to Google, Microsoft did not ask permission before showing Stevenson the Android source code. Read more...
Google fights to hide incriminating emails
Google is fighting to hide an email in which it seems to admit to knowingly infringing the Java patents, but with the text already public it will be a hard fight to win.
Both companies have filed their arguments, with Oracle putting the case for exposing the email, while Google argues that it is privileged communication. The letter detailing both sides has been helpfully uploaded by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, but basically Google argues that the text was a client-attorney communication, while Oracle claims that's bollocks. Read more...
Google exec attacks ‘hostile’ patent campaign against Android
Google's chief legal officer Wednesday issued a stinging rebuke of what he called "bogus patent" attacks on the Android operating system by major competitors like Apple, Oracle and Microsoft.
"Android's success has yielded ... a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents," wrote David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, in a blog post on the company's Web site.
Drummond bristled about moves by major firms to "band together" to acquire patents held by struggling firms, citing a successful $4.5 billion bid by Microsoft, Apple and others in June to acquire 600 patents from Nortel.
He suggested Microsoft and Apple may contend that Android infringes on these "dubious" patents, forcing Google to pay damages or license fees that would raise the costs of smartphones. Read more...
Courts OK $4.5B Nortel patent buyout
U.S. and Canadian courts have approved the sale of thousands of patents from bankrupt Nortel Networks to a consortium including Apple and Microsoft for about $4.5 billion.
The purchasing group, which also included EMC, Ericsson, Research In Motion, and Sony, won an auction for the patents on June 30. On Monday, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved the deal at a joint hearing. Nortel is based in Mississauga, Ontario. Read more...
Apple, Microsoft consortium beats Google for Nortel patents
Nortel Networks has auctioned off its remaining patents and patent applications to a consortium of key technology companies for a cash purchase price of US$4.5 billion.
Google, which offered $900 million for the patents in April, was not among the winning bidders.
Nortel said in a statement late Thursday that a consortium consisting of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony had emerged as the winning bidder in the multi-day auction. It did not give information on the other bidders.
"We believe the consortium is in the best position to utilize the patents in a manner that will be favorable to the industry long term", Ericsson said. The company said it would contribute $340 million to the transaction which is expected to close in the third quarter. RIM said its portion of the purchase consideration was about $770 million. Read more...
Oracle wants a big piece of Android’s ad revenue
Oracle (ORCL) is known for some epic lawsuits, often throwing its weight around in California courtrooms over software licensing and patents. Coming off a recent victory against SAP (SAP), Oracle’s throwdown against Google (GOOG) is just getting warmed up, as the software maker seeks billions in damages over claims that Android software uses technology related to the Java programming language. It’s a drama that’s been building its plot since Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, and Java along with it. The full extent of Oracle’s claims were finally disclosed yesterday in a San Francisco federal court, when the company sought to prevent Google from filing under seal documents in the case stating Oracle’s monetary claims. Read more...
Oracle-Google case could be decided by November
The judge hearing Oracle's Java patent lawsuit against Google hopes to get the case wrapped up before the end of November, he said Wednesday, but it won't help his cause that the U.S. patent office has agreed to reexamine Oracle's patents in the case.
Lawyers for Oracle and Google came before Judge William Alsup at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Wednesday for a so-called claims construction hearing, where the two sides argue over how language in the patents should be interpreted.
Scott Weingaertner, an attorney for Google, told the judge towards the end of the hearing that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to reexamine Oracle's Java patents. Read more...