Items tagged with Patent
Apple's a huge target. No question about it. And patent trolls have a thing for going after monumental companies -- companies that they know will simply settle out if really put to the fire. We aren't making any accusations against Personal Audio, but after winning $8 million in a case against Apple related to playlists, the company is hitting...
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Nokia on Tuesday announced that it had settled its patent fight with Apple, which was about 1 1/2 years old. Nokia first sued Apple in October of 2009. The settlement includes a one-time lump sum payment from Apple to Nokia, along with future royalties. Deutsche Bank analyst Kai Korschelt said in a research note that Nokia is likely to receive...
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Isn't the world just a better place when companies get along? While that's true in most all cases, it's definitely less fun/interesting, but there hasn't been a lot of beef between Samsung Electronics and IBM to begin with. Samsung today introduced a patent cross-license agreement with IBM, a huge monolith in the supercomputer and enterprise...
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If you find yourself frequently disappointed by gifts from Aunt Mildred or Uncle Fred, Amazon may have a solution in store for you. Amazon was recently awarded a patent for a solution that will enable gift recipients to automatically exchange an item before they ever receive it. With Amazon's system, you'll get the chance to choose something...
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Nokia has been under a great deal of pressure lately to perform strong. The company has lagged behind major smartphone vendors, and they're starting to lose their massive grip on the worldwide cellphone market. Their low-end phones still dominate sales in many developing nations, but in North America, the iPhone and lots of Android phones...
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File this one under "Oh yes they did!," because Nintendo has gone and tried to trademark the popular phrase "It's on like Donkey Kong." The request was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office recently, and who knows if it will be granted or not. However, this isn't the first time Nintendo has tried to...
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Apple has won a patent for the coveted pinch-to-zoom feature. The patent application was filed in December of 2006 (patent #7,812,826). However, the patent issued does not give Apple complete control over the pinch-to-zoom functionality, which now exists on just about every current-generation platform. Here's the section of the patent that...
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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office isn't shy about issuing patents for just about anything. Some of the more bizarre ones include a patent for a beerbrella, a chin putter, a tricycle lawnmower, dog nose art, and even an apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force (we're not making any of this up, folks). So in the...
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Remember when Apple used to be the poor underdog, and everyone referred to Microsoft as M$? Boy, times have changed. Apple has been involved in more corporate drama the past few months than any other big name company that we can think of, with the Adobe vs. Apple battle still raging on, a riff between Apple and Google only growing stronger,...
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This story is just now breaking, with developments still filtering in. Rather than introducing new MacBook Pro refreshes or doing something else that Apple typically does on Tuesday mornings, the Cupertino-based company unleashed a bombshell on HTC and the entire smartphone sector just hours ago. Apple just filed a lawsuit against HTC, which...
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Microsoft and Amazon.com Sign Patent Agreement Agreement covers a broad range of products and technology. REDMOND, Wash. - Feb. 22, 2010 - Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has signed a patent cross-license agreement with Amazon.com Inc. The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad...
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Judge Leonard Davis, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, ruled Tuesday that Microsoft can no longer sell Microsoft Word in the United States due to patent infringement. One can imagine Bill Gates having to pick himself off the floor after reading that ruling. Indeed, the ubiquitous software that you probably use every...
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And the fines just keep on coming. Shortly after Intel was dealt a staggering $1.45 billion fine for alleged antitrust practices against the likes of AMD, Microsoft is now facing a slightly less painful $200 million payment to software ware i4i Ltd. This week, a Texas federal jury ordered Microsoft to pay the aforementioned Canadian outfit...
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You'll remember that Apple has previously called jailbreaking iPhones illegal. Yet a recent patent application submitted by Apple uses images of a jailbroken iPhone to make their case. The attorneys at Kramer, Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, who submitted the application in Apple's behalf are probably red-faced; I wonder if Steve Jobs has...
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We’re sure many of you have suggestions for how we could change the copyright laws, patent system, and privacy rules in this country. However, we’re guessing not many of you have acted upon it. The Pirate Party in Sweden is doing just that, and they’re gaining some serious support in the process. Heading into the 2009 European Parliament elections,...
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It's no secret that most radio talk shows have a slight delay before a caller's audio reaches the air. The obvious reason: to make sure no "f-bombs" reach the sensitive ears of the public --- or the FCC. Well, Microsoft has been awarded a patent that might eliminate the need for that delay. The patent, 7437290, is for "Automatic censorship...
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Intel says will defend patent rights against AMD SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Tuesday it has "serious questions" about a deal announced by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to spin off its manufacturing business and focus on chip design,...
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Microsoft and Pioneer Enter Into Patent Cross-Licensing Agreement to Foster Mutual Innovation in Consumer TechnologyAgreement covers a broad range of consumer products for both companies. REDMOND, Wash., and TOKYO — Sept. 16, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. and Pioneer Corp. signed a patent cross-licensing agreement that furthers the development of...
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To think that prior to 2005 there wasn't any page up / page down functionality. After all, that's when Microsoft filed a patent application for "Method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments." To be exact, March 4, 2005 was the date of the application, and the patent was granted on Tuesday. And it's:A method and...
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One of the most requested new features for Apple's iPhone has been instant messaging. After all, e-mail is sort of old-fashioned to your average cutting edge phone phreak. Apple seems to be poised to offer IM, as it has filed a patent for a universal interface for real-time messaging. In normal use, users would continue to use the same bubble...
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Soft errors, they sound a little less ominous than hard errors, don't they? Actually, both are not a lot of fun for the average computer processor or memory chip. A soft error, relative to semiconductor technology, is corruption inside of the memory structure of a device where bits are flipped inadvertently....
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Apple has applied for patents on a series of single and multiple touch gestures that will undoubtedly show up in some iteration on their Mac OS X sometime in the future. Of course Apple already uses a limited number of touch commands on some of their hardware, but the series of gestures outlined in the application indicate an enormous...
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