Legal

Brazil launches its IPHONE, powered by Android

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 18, 2012

Forget about the iPhone, the best phone in the world - here comes the IPHONE, an Android-powered smartphone announced today by Brazilian electronics maker IGB Electronica SA (IGB). The company said in a securities filing that the first model will be called "Neo One". The firm claims to have a trademark for the "IPHONE" term in Brazil, originally applied for in 2000, way before Apple even began thinking about creating a phone. Somebody give Apple's lawyers a buzz...

Samsung drops its bid to ban Apple products in Europe

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Is Samsung feeling magnanimous after a U.S. judge refused to ban its smartphones? That could be one reason why the South Korean firm Tuesday dropped its bid to ban Apple products in Europe. Although the company described its decision to withdraw requests to ban Apple devices in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands as "protect[ing] consumer choice", the Galaxy maker will continue to see Apple for licensing fees of patents it contends were violated by the company...

Apple found guilty of infringing 3 patent troll MobileMedia’s ‘inventions’

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 29, 2017

This just in: Bloomberg tweets that a U.S. court has found Apple's iPhone to infringe three patents owned by MobileMedia Ideas, owned jointly by Nokia, Sony and Denver-based patent licensing firm MPEG LA. Basically your typical patent troll, MobileMedia commands a treasure trove of 300 patents. Most of their filings were originally granted to Sony and Nokia so the two don't have to get their hands dirty in direct litigation.

Now, Mobilemedia last month sued Apple over the iPhone call rejection and screen rotation features. It originally filed a complaint in Delaware in 2010 based on 14 patents in total, taking its case to trial after the number of patents was whittled to three: one for the camera phone and others for call handling and call rejection.

The screen rotation invention was originally granted to Sony in 1999, but Apple pointed to prior art such as patent No. 6,563,535 which covers displaying images right-side-up “regardless of the orientation of the image or the physical orientation” of the device...

Apple: our policy prohibits licensing inventions to competitors

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 4, 2012

Apple has an anti-licensing policy in place that strictly forbids licensing its inventions, sans standard-essential patents, to its competitors. That's the gist of court documents patent blogger Florian Müeller uncovered today. He notes the upcoming hearing concerning the Apple-HTC settlement could bring some more clarity about how Apple structures licensing deals and which exceptions and carve-outs it actually imposes.

US District Court Judge Lucy Koh ordered that the patents Apple and HTC are cross-licensing as part of their settlement are to remain unsealed, though the general public won't be able to have a peek at confidential material.

While Apple's previous briefs did deny that its prized iPhone patents are in fact broadly licensed, Apple struck a far-reaching cross-licensing agreement with Nokia before and, as of recently, with HTC. And the plot thickens...

Apple wins trademarks for the Retina moniker and the Game Center icon design

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 4, 2012

Apple today received two interesting trademark grants seeking to protect the Game Center icon design and the Apple-coined Retina moniker. The former describes a rounded icon divided into four quadrants, each sporting a distinct combination of colors and shapes. It was originally filed in June 2012 under international classes that cover multiplayer games, scoring and tracking game performance and "providing an online portal for social networking through virtual communities".

More important than the Game Center icon is the widely used Retina name, now a registered trademark of Apple, Inc.

Apple: we knew nothing of jury foreman Hogan’s background

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 3, 2012

Apple and Samsung are scheduled to once again duke it out in the courtroom on the eve of Pearl Harbor Day, Thursday, December 6. And as the South Korean conglomerate last month alleged jury misconduct, claiming a foreman in the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit concealed information during the jury selection process, Apple is adamant it knew nothing of the foreman background.

Samsung is hoping to overrule the jury verdict which resulted in a $1.05 billion penalty on the grounds that it would have never approved jury foreman Velvin Hogan had it known of his prior involvement in litigation with a former employee Seagate, with which the Galaxy maker has a “substantial strategic relationship”...

Apple’s patent pact with HTC auto-terminates if either party is bought

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2017

Apple's worldwide patent settlement with HTC is set to automatically expire should either firm get acquired by a third-party, patent blogger Florian Müeller discovered combing through court documents. Even more so, a so-called "change of control" clause is mostly beneficial to Apple given its $110+ billion cash pile making Silicon Valley's most powerful company literally unlikely to be snapped up any time soon.

But if HTC gets bought, Apple's prized iPhone patents licensed to the Taiwanese handset maker remain encumbered. What's more, in case of such an outcome Apple is theoretically free to reassert its claims. The settlement also involves HTC subsidiaries S3 Graphics and VIA technologies, both of which were asserting patents against Apple in the past...

Apple on Black Friday added six Galaxy devices to its Samsung suit

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 24, 2012

Following Samsung's motion asking Judge Paul S. Grewal for permission to amend its infringement contentions against Apple with the iPad mini, iPhone 5 and the latest iPod touch, Apple on Black Friday conveniently brought a motion seeking to add latest Galaxy devices to its California suit, including the Galaxy S III running Android Jelly Bean and the four-inch Galaxy S III Mini. The filing adds a total of six recently-released Galaxy gadgets to Apple's ongoing patent lawsuit against Samsung...

Google complains Apple is withholding iOS 6 source code

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 22, 2012

Just as Samsung added the iPad mini, fifth-gen iPod touch and fourth-gen iPad to its suit, claiming Apple's latest gadgets violate its patents, news broke that Google's handset arm Motorola Mobility is thinking about doing the same in its litigation against Apple in the Southern District of Miami, Florida. And in order to establish that Apple's devices violate Motorola patents, Google is moving to perform some infringement analysis and has filed a motion complaining that Apple is withholding the source code for iOS 6, which powers the latest iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices...

iMessage, Passbook icon are now registered trademarks of Apple, Inc.

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 21, 2012

Apple's iMessage was first introduced at WWDC 2011 and billed as a data-driven communications service for exchange of chat messages, images, contact cards, locations and more between iPhones, iPods and iPads. iMessage also replaced the old iChat client with the OS X Mountain Lion update, enabling Mac owners to interact with other Mac and iOS users simply by using their email handle or cell phone number. Apple originally filed for an iMessage trademark in September 2011 and today the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted the Cupertino firm two registered trademarks for iMessage, in addiction to another one for the Passbook icon...

Apple agrees to show the heavily redacted HTC patent pact to Samsung

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 21, 2012

Samsung is more than welcome to take a peek inside Apple's ten-year patent pact with the ailing handset maker HTC, but key data will be blanked out. South Korea-based Samsung last Friday filed a motion to compel, seeking to obtain the settlement and patent license agreement with HTC, saying it's relevant to its patent battle with the iPhone maker.

As things stand now, a version Apple promised to provide will be marked as "Highly Confidential - Attorneys' Eyes Only" and will contain 33 redacted words. Apple’s generosity knows no boundaries…

Samsung wants to take a peek inside Apple’s patent settlement with HTC

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 16, 2012

Always on the lookout to possibly improve its legal position in the ongoing stand-off with Apple, Samsung on Friday filed a court order seeking to force Apple to turn over a copy of the HTC agreement. As Cody told you, Apple and HTC settled litigation with a ten-year licensing agreement worth nearly $3 billion.

Neither company has released the specifics of the deal, leaving Samsung to wonder whether the agreement includes the famous iPhone software features that Apple successfully asserted against Samsung. You know, the stuff like rubber-band scrolling, pinch zoom and other iPhone perks...