AppleInsider
Apple goes after Motorola and Google with legal guns blazing
February 12, 2012: 3:42 AM ETSeeks billions in damages and an injunction against the flagship Android 4.0 phone
One measure of how quickly events are unfolding in the smartphone patent wars is the number of typos appearing in Florian Mueller's FOSS Patents dispatches. The German-born blogger's coverage of the "thermonuclear war" Steve Jobs promised to unleash against Google's (GOOG) Android operating system are closely read by all sides in the cross-continental disputes, and lately he's hardly had time to breathe, never mind spellcheck.
"There's just too much going on these days," he wrote in the second of two long reports filed Saturday, "and contrary to popular misbelief (which I've seen on Twitter), I do sleep."
As Mueller sees it, the subject of his two latest reports, a pair of federal lawsuits filed by Apple (AAPL) in two California district courts, are signal events that could turn the tide in Cupertino's favor.
Galaxy Nexus
In the Northern District: In the first suit, Apple is asking for a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus -- the official "Ice Cream Sandwich" lead device developed by Samsung in close cooperation with Google -- based of four court-tested "high-powered" patents that Mueller dubs the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Google's decision to keep using one of them -- the so-called "data detector" patent -- in the latest version of Android, even after the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that an HTC Android phone had infringed it is, in Mueller's words, "unfair vis-à-vis HTC..., snubs Apple, and shows disregard for intellectual property in general and the ITC in particular. This is a case of willful, extremely reckless infringement."
In the Southern District: Here Apple is trying to shut down Motorola Mobility's (MMI) legal strategy -- endorsed implicitly and "irrevocably" last week by Google, which is about to purchase MMI -- of blocking sales of iPhones in Germany on the grounds that they infringe industry-standard broadband patents that Motorola pledged years ago to license to all comers on so-called FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms. Motorola licensed the patents to chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM) and that license would normally extend, by the principle of "patent exhaustion," to a company like Apple that buys Qualcomm chips.
But in an exchange of letters revealed in Apple's suit, Motorola asked Qualcomm "to terminate any and all license and covenant rights with respect to Apple, effective February 10, 2011."
Mueller writes that "even though Qualcomm may benefit from weak patent exhaustion defenses in other situations because it is a major patent holder who could do a lot of 'double-dipping', it appears that it supports Apple, and I don't think that's just because Apple is a customer. I think it's most likely because MMI's discriminatory termination relating to only Apple is, quite probably, unjustifiable and ineffectual."
"If it's true that patent exhaustion is a valid defense in Apple's favor," Mueller concludes, "Google-MMI is playing with fire here." Apple was forced to temporarily remove the iPhone 3G and 4 from its German online store based on Motorola's FRAND complaint, and now sales of the iPhone 4S could be at risk. The company is seeking damages that could run to many billions of dollars.
Both cases are getting extensive coverage in the trade press -- for example at AppleInsider here and here -- but for their detail, deep expertise and passion, we recommend Mueller's reports, typos and all. See here and here.
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Does the white iPhone matter?
One analyst, anticipating a 100+ point run-up over the next 3-5 months, believes it does
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So wrote Ticonderoga's Brian White in a note to clients Monday, taking his cue from an AppleInsider report that Apple (AAPL) began shipping white iPhones to MORE
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iPhone 5: See you in September
Three sources tell Reuters production for the new model will be starting in July or August
Reuters, a wire service that still maintains extensive bureaus in the Far East, cites "three people with direct knowledge of the company's supply chain" who say that Apple's (AAPL) next generation iPhone won't ship until September.
The new phone will be largely the same as the old one, according to Reuters, but will have a faster MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 20, 2011 5:54 AM ETPosted in: Apple, AppleInsider, Foxconn, iPhone, iPhone 5, Largan Precision, Mobile, Reuters, supply chain, Wintek -
Today in Tech: iPad 2 reviews, AOL layoffs today
A curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you everyday.
AOL plans to layoff several hundred employees starting today in editorial and other media product groups, as well as jobs in India -- areas like network and ad sales should remain unaffected. The move comes as AOL restructures its editorial division after MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Mar 10, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
iPad printing: 7 months, still missing
Apple discovers that making it easy to print from an iOS device is harder than it looks
The audience cheered on Sept. 1 when Steve Jobs announced during Apple's (AAPL) fall preview that wireless printing for the iPad would be included in iOS 4.2, the new iPhone/iPad operating system said to be coming Friday, Nov. 12.
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First, MORE
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Intel on the outside
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