Legal Archive

Today's "the day after". The day after Apple started a patent war with HTC and Google. Today, we have statements from both HTC and Google, and a number of other people have weighed in as well as to the possible ramifications of Apple's lawsuit.

In a statement released today, Apple announced it is suing HTC, claiming the Taiwanese phone maker infringed upon 20 of Cupertino's patents related to the iPhone. After Nokia and Apple suing one another a number of times over the past couple of months, this is the next high-profile patent lawsuit in the mobile phones business. Engadget has the filings, and it seems that Apple wants to avoid angering Microsoft, but has no qualms about taking on Google. Update: Engadget analyses every single patent in the claim.

On Tuesday, the US IP Enforcement Coordinator made a request to the public for input on how IP enforcement should work in the current administration. After the business with ACTA, and yesterday the IIPA, this could be a great opportunity for our American readers to voice their concerns tot he Obama administration.

Xerox Corp has sued Google Inc and Yahoo Inc, accusing them of infringing the document management company's patents related to Internet search. In a lawsuit filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, Xerox said Google's Web-based services such as Google Maps, YouTube and AdSense advertising software, as well as Web tools including Yahoo Shopping, infringe patents granted as far back as 2001. Xerox seeks compensation for past infringement and asked the court to halt the companies from further using the technology.

Ah, how we Europeans get to sit back and relax whenever some company invokes the DMCA - a law we don't have over here. Sadly, that sentence has to be amended with the following word: yet. We don't have the DMCA yet, but it the ACTA is accepted, we Europeans - and the rest of the world - can no longer sit back and relax: the US is hard at work imposing the DMCA upon the nation of Foreign.

BBC News reports that the US and European regulators (yes, the same EC that slapped MS with a EUR900M fine) have approved the deal that will see Microsoft control Yahoo's search and advertising business. This will mean that one of the first, great search engines (there was a time before Google) will now be powered by johnny-come-lately Bing.

The sand has hit the elephant. The buttons have dried the desert. The empty CD-Rs are dancing to Radiohead. The unicorns have left the building. The US International Trade Commission is going to be working overtime this year: after Nokia and Apple, Motorola, too, has now filed a complaint with the ITC, seeking a ban on imports of RIM devices.

Like many of you, I kind of lost my faith in the US justice system (when it comes to piracy cases) when a judge awarded USD 1.92 million in damages for downloading 24 songs in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case. At the same time, also like many of you, I was very pleased with the outcome of the OiNK case in the United Kingdom last week. As it turns out, some of my faith in the US system has been restored: the USD 1.92 fine has been reduced by 97%, to a mere USD 54000.

The Mac Observer has found out that Psystar has indeed decided to appeal the case it lost against Apple. "Psystar has officially filed its Notice of Appeal in the copyright suit it lost against Apple Inc., according to a court document obtained by The Mac Observer. The step was a formality in the appeals process, but until it was filed, it was unclear if the company would actually mount an appeal."

Ah, a lovely bit of news that to help us start the weekend off with positive thoughts! A UK jury has unanimously acquitted Alan Ellis, founder and administrator of the invitation-only OiNK music bittorrent tracker. This means that his 2 year-long trial has finally come to an end - there's no more room for appeal.

"Eastman Kodak has issued lawsuits against both Apple and Blackberry maker Research in Motion, claiming neither of them has licensed its patents despite using the technology described therein and having been warned about it by Kodak. The photography pioneer said the alleged infringement centred on intellectual property protecting a method for previewing colour images and the processing of images of different resolutions. It filed complaints against both Apple and RIM with the US District Court for Western New York."

Last Friday, January 8, the University of Amsterdam (I'm with the competition) handed out an honorary doctorate to Harvard prof. Lawrence Lessig, known to you all (I may hope!) as one of the founding members of the wildly successful Creative Commons project. During the acceptance ceremony, he held one of his keynote presentations - and one that is required listening material for everyone. And with everyone - I mean everyone.

I have no inherent problem with computer makers shipping their machines with Windows pre-installed. Of course, I'd much rather see a lot more diversity when I walk into an electronics retailer, but I can't really blame OEMs for taking the safe bet and focussing on what they know customers seem to want. Still, we need better ways to return our unused OEM copies of Windows, and apparently, a lot of people in Italy agree.

"Responding to Apple's vehement countersuit against Nokia, in which it leveled 13 patent infringement allegations against Nokia's 10, last December 29, Nokia added 14 more to the mix, including for concepts that may perhaps be as integral to the construction of modern telephones as power-conserving voltage-controlled oscillators, and a sensor that de-activates touchscreens while the phone is held against the ear."