Blog 18: Much In the Air Re: Apple v. Samsung

Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender submitted his initial determination on remand in the investigation of Apple's complaint against Samsung. Previously, Pender asserted that Samsung had violated four patents, but allowed Samsung workarounds for three utility patents. The last patent was a design patent, which can easily be designed around. The ITC supported Pender's decision.

Pender's decision will go under review and then Apple/Samsung will likely petition for a review of this ruling, leading to further court and ITC deliberations. The decision of this court will have a significant impact on the litigated issues and may potentially result in an injunction against Samsung's products. Previously, a federal judge denied Apple's injunction despite finding that Samsung had violated several patents. Apple's next opportunity to gain a dramatic win against Samsung is for Pender's ruling to support an injunction against Samsung.

To date, Samsung has not disclosed the number of devices that have incorporated the new workarounds mandated by Judge Pender in previous decisions. The ruling will also determine how much Samsung will be forced to modify their products: ideally, Samsung will be able to make changes "under the hood" of their devices that users will not be able to detect, although the possibility exists that the quality of the phones will degrade as changes are mandated by the ITC.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/itc-judge-issues-preliminary-ruling-on.html

Blog 17: Nokia Blocks Google's Video Standard

In a surprisingly confrontational move, Nokia supported the H.264 codec and refused to license out or otherwise share patents that would likely be necessary for Google's VP8 standard. Nokia criticized Google for attempting to force its new codec down the throats of Internet users and cited the excellence of the collaborative effort involved in creating the H.264 codec. Nokia's refusal to cooperate with Google is intended to kill the VP8 codec--the combination of legal and technical fees associated with bringing VP8 to market should make it cost-prohibitive for Google to use anything but H.264.

The article on Foss Patents from which this post is derived suggested that Google's "Do No Evil" motto may not be as innocent and benevolent as it seems: Google does not want to pay royalties to individuals and companies that have heavily invested to develop video technology and wants to gain control of the Internet to best benefit their own products and services, while leaving competitors by the wayside. Within this context, it is no surprise that Google (over)paid for Motorola Mobility in an attempt to gain access to thousands of patents to bully around competitors. However, Google has failed to achieve a meaningful return on the $12.5 billion dollar acquisition and has lost many of its recent patent lawsuits.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-patent.html

Blog 15: Nokia Tethers Itself to Android

In another patent setback for the software giant, Google appears to be violating a decade-old Nokia patent on tethering, more specifically the ability to make "a data transmission connection from a computer to a mobile communication network for transmission of analog and/or digital signals. " Nokia's victory in a recent court battle against Google/HTC will give it with a tremendous opportunity to collect new licensing and settlement fees from Android smartphone companies.


This tethering patent has the potential to allow Nokia to collect royalties from Android-based OEMs and may even allow for import bans on certain devices (without agreed-upon royalty structures). What is particularly interesting about this case is that Nokia filed for this tethering patent in 1995 and only bothered to file this patent in the United States and in Finland. Apple and Blackberry (rest in peace) have already settled their patent disputes with Nokia, but Android-based smartphone makers have not made these agreements. Nokia's legacy as a company that pioneered the mobile phone industry is still providing it with dividends today, even as the company struggles to survive in modern smartphone marketplace.

Blog 16: Google Lacks Mobility in Patent War

In continuation of Google's flagging attempts to defend itself through Motorola Mobility's patent portfolio, a judge at the ITC ruled that the Xbox controller does not violate Motorola's patent on a "sensor controlled user interface for portable communication device[s]". This will be the fifth patent that will be withdrawn from consideration from the legal battles between Google and Microsoft. Four other patents in this trial have been withdrawn because Google has agreed to either settle or has dropped the suits outright. It is interesting that Google decided to use this Motorola patent to sue Microsoft on a patent  unrelated to the smartphone industry.

Foss Patents notes that this lawsuit is a continued example of how Google's $12.5 bn acquisition of Motorola Mobility has not given Google the ability to freely cross-license its Android platform. Instead, Google's $12.5 bn acquisition appears to only providing Google with a trickle of licensing fees (far below t he $4 bn that Google initially envisioned), while Microsoft has gained import-bans and injunctions against Google.

Blog 14: Patent Claim Drops in Nokia v. HTC

In its lawsuit against HTC, Nokia has dropped approximately 40% of its claims associated with a patent that protects Nokia's method for transmitting and receiving radio signals through various radio interfaces of communication systems. Two other patents have already been dropped in this lawsuit. The first was a voluntary withdrawal of a calendar app patent; the other patent was dropped because of HTC's successful dismissal of a app-supporting communication network.

Although Google has not been directly named as a participant in the suit, the tech giant has pressed for Nokia to drop more of their claims on their patents. Google's Android platform runs on HTC phones and is likely interested in protecting their market share from Nokia. I would be interested to see if Microsoft, Nokia's sponsor, will step into this lawsuit to protect Nokia's claims.



http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-drops-several-claims-of-one.html

Blog 13: Ericsson Oversteps with Samsung

In a growing trend of simplifying patent lawsuits, judge David Shaw denied Ericsson's introduction of 15 new patent claims. Ericsson's lawsuit already has more than 130 claims, and the ITC and Judge Shaw want to decrease the scope of the investigation by narrowing the amount of claims. The fifteen claims were based off of U.S. Reissue Patent No. RE43,931.

The rejection of the motion to introduce new patent allegation is a clear win for Samsung, and this case helps shed more light on the role of the ITC. The ITC did not directly oppose Ericsson's motion to introduce more claims, but claimed that it was concerned that the introduction of this motion would delay the process of the trial and would cause the investigation to balloon out of the tight 15-month schedule set for the case. I think it would be more beneficial for an efficient legal system if the ITC took a more active role in helping resolve legal cases and actively setting precedents for other legal cases to follow. This help to simplify the legal system and might decrease the lag between the resolution of lawsuits and the impact of precedence ramifications.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/samsung-succeeds-in-blocking-ericssons.html

Blog 12: Nokia Complains about Dismissal of Wholly Groundless Patent

In February, Nokia alleged that HTC infringed on nine of its patents. However, Judge Thomas Pender ordered a termination of the ITC investigation. Nokia complained that the dismissal of its suit on the grounds of it being "wholly groundless" was unfair and has appealed the dismissal.

Nokia complained that:

1. HTC is attempting to protect a patent features that Nokia is not challenging as infringement. Nokia claims that HTC could, at best, obtain a delay on devices with a protocol that sends data to apps on the phone
2. HTC does not have an industry standard to which it has tied the 529 patent

This case is important because the ITC has the opportunity to step in and set up a precedent of the "wholly groundless" terminology. Without establishing clear ground rules on what is "wholly groundless", the ITC will lose its power in arbitrating frivolous lawsuits, which will open the door for multitudes of frivolous lawsuits.

Blog 11: 25th Time's the Charm

Samsung suffered another setback today in court, as its attempt to seek damages and injunctions against Apple was put down by British Justice Floyd. Samsung has only succeeded on three of its standard-essential patent assertions against Apple out of 25: two of these assertions were declared in South Korea, the location of Samsung's headquarters, and one in the Netherlands.

Samsung's suit was about three patents. Here is a brief outline of the patent's claim and Apple's successful counter suit argument:

1. EP1714404 - protocols for reducing power consumption when transmitting data on WDCMA platforms
1. This patent was rejected because of the existence of prior art and was seen as "obvious"
2. EP1005726 - protocol for pressing data and encoding/decoding in an efficient manner
1. This patent was rejected because it was entitled to the priority claimed and was also an "obvious" patent
3. EP1357675 - channel coding in CDMA systems
1. This patent was rejected on the grounds of not being entitled to the priority claimed and was also obvious

The seemingly-pointless nature of some of these patent suits is also backed up with Samsung's demands for 2.4% royalties on Apple devices.

Blog 10: VirnetX Joins Apple Royalty Queue

One of the pioneers of secure Internet communications protocols was awarded a hefty settlement in court earlier this week. The firm VirnetX obtained a sweeping victory against Apple on the grounds that Apple had infringed upon its wireless communication patents through the networking technology used in its FaceTime technology. The success of VirnetX's lawsuit is attributable to its status as a legitimate technology company and its diligence in pursuing lawsuits against major tech companies.

The terms of the settlement will require Apple to negotiate a royalty with VirnetX while paying more than $330,000 per day until an agreement is reached. This is not the first time that Apple has suffered a major legal defeat within the smartphone field--in 2011, Nokia allegedly won over a billion dollars in damages and collected a royalty estimated to be at around $10 per iPhone. The success of VirnetX's suit against Apple will likely embolden it to pursue legal action against other major tech companies. VirnetX's stock price is up more than 15% this year.

Sources: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57571521-94/virnetx-v-apple-judge-upholds-$368m-patent-suit-verdict/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/14/apple-nokia-patent-case

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130227-707982.html?mod=WSJ_qtoverview_wsjlatest

Blog 9: Judge Takes a Bite out of Apple Settlement

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323478304578334540541100744.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

Judge Lucy Koh altered the terms of the $1 billion in damages that Samsung was initially ordered to pay, and changed Apple's patent award to around $600 million. The decision stemmed from a belief that Apple had not produced enough evidence of Samsung's theft of profit. Ironically, neither Samsung nor Apple had produced enough precedent cases to support their assertion of damages, despite the massive legal fees that both companies have provided to their lawyers.

The unfavorable decision for the Cupertino tech company may encourage Apple's rivals to step up litigation measures in light of the change in favorable legal winds. Additionally, the judge's settlement will lead to further appeals by Samsung and will extend enable the inanity of patent lawsuits.