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HTC sues Apple for patent infringement, seeks to ban iPad, iPod, and iPhone

by Stefan Etienne on 12. May, 2010 in Apple, Breaking, HTC, Lawsuits

HTC has responded to Apple’s patent lawsuits with their own. In fact, mainly what these infringements are targeted at are the iPad, iPod, and iPhone. Better yet, HTC’s compliant was to the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) to halt the importation of all iProducts mentioned above.

Basically, they’re trying the stop the iPod, iPad, and iPhone from being sold. Giz has obtained some docs claryfing what HTC is suing over, and the answers are: “Two are related to power management, two are over personalized phone dialers, and one’s over a telephone dialer with easy access memory.”

Although you can wait several years until any of this actually results in court dates. Give it your lifetime even. OK, not your lifetime, but give it a few long years. On the other side of the isle, Apple has not responded.

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Apple Going After Android In HTC Lawsuit

by Stefan Etienne on 02. Mar, 2010 in Android, Apple, Breaking, HTC, Lawsuits

It’s hard to believe, but this is a major shadow in Google’s direction. It appears that the main lawsuit has to either do with Android as a whole, or that HTC uses Android in a certain way that Apple doesn’t like, for example in HTC handsets. If this really is a shot at Android, then things could get ugly, but if it’s against HTC infringing Apple patents, then still, there will be sparks that fly. Head up to Engadget where the docs are in a massive gallery of 41 pages.

Source: Engadget

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Apple Sues HTC for Infringing Over 20 iPhone Patents UPDATE

by Stefan Etienne on 02. Mar, 2010 in Apple, Breaking, HTC, Lawsuits

Apple is suing HTC for over 20 patents “related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.” After Apple sued Nokia, you though all was over, right? Wrong. And some of the charges are unbelievable. One of them is unlock gestures on an unlock screen. That would cover every single smartphone right now on the market. Apple is asking for a permant injuction wohich would bar HTC from selling its phones here in the U.S. The entire filing and press release is embedded for you after the break.

And guess what? There’s comment from Steve Jobs on this too:

“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.”

UPDATE: It looks like HTC didn’t even know of the case against them and have not even seen the lawsuit for themselves. Here’s their comment:

We only learned of Apple’s actions based on your stories and Apple’s press release. We have not been served yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years.

So far it seems that HTC is pretty confident. Giz and All Things D are really the only other blogs with the docs right now, since they’re not even in the court system yet. Once they do come out and are published for all to see, we’ll know exactly what Cupertino and Steve are actually suing for.

UPDATE 2: And here’s the lawsuit.

Apple vs HTC –

Essentially it’s the same type of lawsuit file against Nokia, and almost the same nasty comments on Palm, but which haven’t led Apple to sue them (yet). We’ll update this post as soon as we learn what exactly Apple sued HTC for.

Source: Giz

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Italian Court Finds Google Execs Guilty For Video They Were Not Part Of

by Stefan Etienne on 24. Feb, 2010 in Breaking, Google, Lawsuits

Scarily a new post on the Google blog called “Serious Threat to the Web in Italy” has emerged to explain why three Google employees were convicted and charged for a crime they did not commit. The issue here was a video uploaded to Google Video in 2006 depicting an autistic student getting bullied by peers. The Italian police informed Google of situation; Google pulled the vid and helped the police figure out who uploaded it. Pretty reasonable, right? Well not quite. Instead of being thanked for and let go, four Google employees where charged with “for failure to comply with the Italian privacy code” and criminal defamation. The employees did not know the people in the video, did not remove (apparently some other employees did), and did not even know it existed until after it was removed. One of the employees left Google in 2008, all of which Google is defending. Currently under Italian law there will be no jail time for the employees since a sentence less than 3 years is typically commuted in Italy for those without a criminal record.

Google’s VP and Deputy General Counsel Matt Sucherman said the following on the issue:

“It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them – every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video – then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.”

If they don’t win this, it could be a major blow to the freedom and creativity of the Internet itself. This backwards lawsuit would mean that executives (at Google) are responsible for the content users upload, which is entirely false.

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Microsoft now forced to stop selling Word by Jan 11

by Stefan Etienne on 22. Dec, 2009 in Breaking, Lawsuits, Microsoft

For those of you who were following this waayyy back in May, Microsoft appealed in a patent infringement case against i4i, a 30-personnel Canadian company. The cause of the case was that certain XML tags were used in both Word 2003 and 2007 without i4i’s consent. You can tell where this is going: Steve Ballmer is going to start practicing how to sign bigger checks. As for continuing sales with Word 2003 and 2007, Microsoft will no longer be allowed to put them on store shelves on January 11. The good news is: one, OpenOffice users have nothing to worry about, and two, the beta version of Office 2010 and full version of Office 2010 won’t have any worries either.

[Via Microsoft and Engadget]

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Psystar is officially finished

by Stefan Etienne on 16. Dec, 2009 in Apple, Lawsuits

It’s finally done with Psystar. They can no longer sell, distribute, or help in the process of making Hackintoshes. The shortest possible translation is that Psystar essentially doesn’t exist. They have until December 31th to comply with current terms. But here’s the catch: there wasn’t really any final judgement for the $50 Rebel EFI, which allows the buyer to install Mac OS X on a PC. Although there was one warning by the way:

What is certain, however, is that until such a motion is brought, Psystar will be selling Rebel EFI at its peril, and risks finding itself in contempt if its new venture falls within the scope of the injunction.”

So that settles that — but wait, would Psystar make one final, deadly move? Maybe.

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Intel has been sued by the FTC for bad practices

by Stefan Etienne on 16. Dec, 2009 in Breaking, Lawsuits

Intel is knee-deep in trouble now. According to the FTC, Intel was “engaging in a deliberate campaign to hamstring competitive threats to its monopoly.” After paying AMD 1.25 billion to settle several disputes, and then getting fined by the EU for 1.45 billion, Intel now has the Federal Trade Comission hot on its heels. The allegations are the same the EU fined Intel for, which are:

The E.U.’s charges included paying computer makers to use Intel chips instead of AMD ones, and even threatening some companies if they went ahead and used AMD CPUs. The FTC notes that the public has been denied access to “potentially superior” chips as a result of the same bad practices. And it highlights what seems to be a particularly nasty one: Intel apparently designed compiler code so that it”deliberately stunted” the performance of the code when run on non-Intel CPUs, and then told the public the code simply worked better on Intel-made chips.

Ouch. The first hearing is on September 8, 2010. From the looks of it, Intel might not come out of this in a good condition.

[Via FTC, MarketWatch]

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Google’s Nexus One trademark filed, could case legal case

by Stefan Etienne on 15. Dec, 2009 in Google, Lawsuits, Rumors

Now for those of you who are extremely excited over the Nexus One, just try to remember that Google releasing this smartphone is a rumor, and we’re not completely sure of it yet. Remember it could just be another Dev Phone for developers only.

Oh, what the heck! Let the speculation fly, because we have more for you. Google has just filed a trademark for the name “Nexus One”, but it could possibly bring them legal troubles. The “Nexus” name belongs to Philip K. Dick, who created the Nexus-6 replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and also in Blade Runner. Philip’s daughter is in charge of his licensing work — and you guessed it — she’s contacted lawyers to talk about it, and isn’t happy that Google didn’t ask for permission to use the name. She also stated that she would have been fine with it if she was contacted about it earlier.

So Google, wanna talk about the Nexus One’s name now? You’ll have to.

[Via AndroidOS.in with more coverage at The New York Times]

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It’s war: Apple countersues Nokia

by Stefan Etienne on 11. Dec, 2009 in Apple, Lawsuits, Nokia

Apple publicly announced that they’re suing Nokia over 13 different patents, 3 more than Nokia sued for when they went to court accusing Apple of copyright infringement.

And did I mention that Apple is also accusing Nokia of stealing? The fabulous punch-line:

“Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours.”

That statement was made by Bruce Sewell, Apple’s General Counsel and senior vice president. Hit the link for Apple’s press release and the filed court documents.

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Verizon & AT&T: We’re friends, not to worry anymore

by Stefan Etienne on 02. Dec, 2009 in Breaking, Commercials, Lawsuits

theresamapforthat

Now this is some outcome, isn’t it? No more court dates, no more attacks, nothing more. Just a calm landscape between AT&T and Verizon; so don’t expect to see Luke Wilson staring into your face, pleading that AT&T has the better network. Or maybe we will see more of him? (Cringe on that thought). Now somebody get moving with your network to claim the “Most Reliable 3G Network” award (and tagline) so something like this doesn’t happen again. In the meantime, this is done.

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