Post 18- Google Loses Case to Microsoft

Last week, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) at the ITC gave a preliminary ruling on a Google vs. Microsoft case over U.S. Patent No. 6,246,862 which is about a "sensor controlled user interface for a portable communication device." The imagine above illustrates "a perspective view of a portable communication device employing a sensor controlled user interface."

Google had originally argued that Microsoft's Xbox infringed on this patent, and at first, it was looking good for Google when in the first preliminary ruling for this case, there were in fact 4 infringements, but in June the cases was remanded to ALJ Shaw and he saw no violations.

The author of Foss Patents commented on this, saying that "Google's Motorola hasn't won anything apart from a couple of German H.264 patent rulings it never got to enforce," and he says Google will have to license their SEP portfolio to Microsoft in exchange for a mere percentage of the royalties they had originally demanded.
Article is here: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/google-loses-another-one-to-microsoft.html

Post 17- Google Pledges 10 Patents to Open Source Software

Today, I read an article from Foss Patents Blog called “Google’s promise not to assert patents against open source software: just a PR stunt.” It discussed how today, Google announced that it is pledging 10 patents to open source software. What pledging entails is promising not to assert your patents against open source software. In comparison, IBM and Sun Microsystems in 2005 pledged 500 and 1,600 patents respectively to open source software.

The author of the blog criticized Google for giving pledging so few of its patents when it has an unimaginably large intellectual property and patent portfolio. The author also commented that Google is not being transparent at all in hiding their patent portfolio size and talked about how the patents database of Google’s website doesn’t show the correct number of patents owned by Google, because many of their purchased patents haven’t been officially reissued in Google’s name, and only Google knows their true patent portfolio size. Whereas Microsoft reveals all of its patents to the public, Google keeps this information secret—perhaps they consider it a trade secret?

If this pledging of patents to open source software was supposed to be a PR stunt for Google, why didn’t they pledge more and appear more generous?

I’ll expand on this in my Youtube blog. Article is right here: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/googles-promise-not-to-assert-10.html

Post 16- Nokia Gets Injunction Against HTC

Last week, I posted about the ITC refusing to review a decision between Nokia and HTC, and how Nokia hasn't been winning many cases against HTC. Today, however, I just encountered an article on Foss Patents blog about Nokia winning a patent injunction against HTC in Germany for a power-saving technology.

The patent in question specifically had to do with increasing battery life by using less of the phone's energy when adjacent mobile connections, like a radio signal, are available. And, as mentioned above, Nokia won.

This is quite a big blow to HTC in Germany because Nokia was granted a total injunction and even a recall of infringing items that are out at retail locations. Nokia was quoted in a corporate statement saying: ""Nokia is pleased with this decision, which confirms the quality of Nokia’s patent portfolio. Nokia has also patented this power saving invention in the US, UK, France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Japan and Hong Kong. In addition to this case in Germany, we have asserted the patent against HTC in the UK and in the US International Trade Commission, with a hearing in the US scheduled to start in two months’ time. More than 30 further Nokia patents have been asserted against HTC in other actions brought by Nokia in Germany, the US and the UK. HTC must now respect our intellectual property and compete using its own innovations."

And this quotation refers to 40 patents in suit with HTC in not just Germany, but the USA and UK as well, according to Foss Patents. I thought it was interesting how many lawsuits were going between these two competitors, and once again, it goes to show how significant intellectual property can be in getting ahead of your competitor. (article is here:http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-wins-german-patent-injunction.html)

Post 15- Samsung Calls Ericsson Patent Troll

Today, I read an article from Foss Patents blog about Samsung and Ericsson and their battle in the smartphone patent wars. Ericsson brought up two complaints against Samsung in federal court in November last year. This week, after a small delay due to Samsung receiving an extension, Samsung responded to the complaints and introduced counterclaims asserting eight of their own patents, among them are U.S. Patent No. 8,169,986 on a "Method And Apparatus For Transmitting And Receiving System Information In A Mobile Communication System" and U.S. Patent No. 8,179,780 on a "Method And Apparatus For Transmitting And Receiving Control Information To Randomize Inter-Cell Interference In A Mobile Communication System."

Additionally, Samsung said some pretty aggressive comments about Ericsson, saying:

 "Ericsson has recently jettisoned its mobile phone business and it now feels unhinged as a non-practicing entity in the mobile phone market to extort vastly unreasonable and discriminatory license fees from Samsung under threat of product exclusion resulting from a simultaneously filed complaint in the U.S. International Trade Commission ('ITC'). Ericsson's misguided actions epitomize the patent 'hold up' problem that has been the recent subject of wide discussion within standard-setting organizations and other authorities around the globe" and "Ericsson seeks to dismantle the standard-setting framework with unreasonable and discriminatory license demands from a willing licensee under threat of product exclusion."

Overall, these are pretty harsh accusations towards Ericsson, and I am curious to see if Ericsson has a response to this. I didn't realize that, after Ericsson sold its mobile phone section to Sony, it would become an NPE, but Samsung's comments accuse them of being trolls.

I look forward to seeing how these lawsuits play out.

Post 14- Samsung vs. Apple ITC Ruling Delayed

 Today, I read an article from earlier this week on Foss Patents blog about Apple and Samsung. Samsung has had a legal complaint against Apple for infringing on U.S. Patent No. 7,706,348 and the ITC has postponed the ruling to May 31 of this year. The patent in question deals with “an apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system,” and the diagram included below specifically illustrates “a block diagram of another embodiment of the TFCI decoding apparatus in the IMT 2000 system according to the present invention.”

Even though Samsung does have a basis for fighting for infringement, it is unlikely an import-ban will be issued and unfortunately for Samsung, many of its past efforts of fighting Apple have failed. 

Lastly, I found it pretty interesting that many of the alleged infringements of Apple products against Samsung are actually on the older models from Apple, like the iPhone 3, 3GS, and 4, and older iPads, but most of the newer models don’t even have this technology that is infringing on patent ‘348. I will expand on this in my Youtube Blog.

Post 13- ITC Refuses to Review Nokia vs. HTC Decision

 Today, I read an article from Foss Patents blog entitled “ITC Affirms Dismissal of One of Nine Nokia Patents-in-Suit in HTC Case.” The patent in question has to do with a “communication network terminal supporting a plurality of applications” and the diagram above “illustrates the flow of a short message from one mobile station to another.” The case involving this patent was dismissed around a month ago by an ITC judge and a couple weeks ago Nokia asked the ITC to review the judge’s decision and yesterday the ITC refused to review the order without giving any reason why.

Interestingly enough, the author of Foss Patents doesn’t believe that the patent is standard essential, but HTC has delayed the process enough to the point where, because of the lengthy duration of litigation, Nokia won’t be able to enforce its patent against HTC any time soon. This is yet another example of how companies can use patent litigation as a weapon against competitors because they know how much it can delay the process.

Post 12- Competition Policy International's Suggestions for FRAND disuputes

I was browsing FossPatents blog and I saw one of his posts from yesterday March 5 about Competition Policy International (CPI) publishing a paper called "Standard Setting Organization's (SSOs) Can Help Solve the Standard Essential Patent (SEP) licensing problem. And, being relevant to the FTC, the FTC's Director of their Bureau of Economics coauthored with a former Chief Economist of the Antitrust division within the US DOJ as well as with the European Commission's Directorate-General. Thus, the three authors share a wealth of experience in this field and are experienced economists.

Within the recently published paper, the authors claim that their suggestions will "greatly improve efficiency in patent licensing" because of the current problem if SEP holders trying to get FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) royalties and licensing fees out of other companies. The main goals of their reforms, according to the blog post, are "less hold-up, lower litigation costs, and more innovation."

Specifically, to achieve these aforementioned goals, they have 4 main suggestions that come out of their paper. Briefly, the first has to do with FRAND commitments becoming weaker or more vague after the sale of a patent. The second aims to ""include a process that is faster and lower cost for determining a F/RAND rate, or adjudicating disputes over F/RAND, than litigation." The third has to do with switching to cash-only option versus cross licensing. Lastly, the fourth hopes to have a more formal process through which people can discuss FRAND disputes without the threat of injunction. I will expand on these points and on the blogpost in my Youtube blog.
Article is here: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/chief-economists-of-eu-commission-and.html

Post 11- ITC InterDigital Case

Today, I read an article on FossPatents blog about the company InterDigital's latest ITC case against Samsung, Nokia, Huawei, and ZTE. On March 1, 2013, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Robert K. Rogers publically released the start date for a trial-- December 16, 2013. InterDigital is aiming to have an import ban placed on these companies that are allegedly infringing on their patents. If an import ban is indeed granted for InterDigital and if its competitiors have to cease their operations that infringed on InterDigital's patents, it will still take a very long time to happen and it becomes clear how drawn out this process is.

So, even if the import ban is granted, it will require 4 months to rule the case and then another 60 days of Presidential Review and then finally the ruling can go into effect in August 2014,  which is a very long time from now. Clearly, these cases take a long time to resolve, and the author of the blog recommended that in the meantime, they should sue for pecuniary compensation in federal court.

Lastly, another remark worth pointing out is that Nokia and Huawei claim that they are being sued over royalities and licensing fees in some countries across the world in whichc InterDigital doesn't even own the rights to the patents. I thought this brought up an interesting point-- namely, if InterDigital is suing these companies worldwide, and it knows that there is no case in some of these countries, what seperates them from being a patent troll?
article  is right here <http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/december-trial-scheduled-in.html>