Patent

Three hundred of Steve Jobs' patents, four stories down

If you didn't already know about the Smithsonian's exhibit, you'd never find it

FORTUNE -- First you have to find which of the Smithsonian's 19 museums houses the Steve Jobs' exhibit that opened last week -- not an easy task for someone unfamiliar with the monumental geography of Washington D.C.

Then, once you locate the Ripley Center -- a tiny circular building, just to the right of the Institute's big red castle -- MORE

Bloomberg Businessweek draws Apple's patent battlemap

Steve Jobs last war, the magazine argues, could do his company more harm than good

Click here to read this week's cover story on Apple's (AAPL) war against Google's (GOOG) Android.

Apple wins limited ruling in important Android patent suit

Not the knockout blow Steve Jobs sought; Google has until April to find a workaround

Apple (AAPL) has won a partial victory in an intellectual property case that Steve Jobs had famously vowed to fight to his "last dying breath."

The U.S. International Trade commission ruled Monday that the software in some of HTC's Android smartphones violated one provision of an Apple patent and that those phones would no longer be allowed into the MORE

A Patent War thriller

A Cold War analysis in which Google plays the part of North Korea's Kim Jong-Il

Daniel Eran Dilger, one of the cleverest writers covering Apple -- both at AppleInsider, and on his own blog, Roughly Drafted Magazine -- has posted an analysis of the latest twist in the smartphone patent wars that reads like a Cold War-era thriller.

Title:

Why is Google playing the Cold War patent game in the age of patent terrorism?

Cast of MORE

Consortium led by Apple buys Nortel's patents for $4.5 billion

Google's Android operating system is the big loser as 6,000 patents fall into enemy hands

In the largest exchange of intellectual property rights in the Internet age, a powerhouse consortium led by Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) has agreed to buy from the bankrupt Nortel Corp. access to more than 6,000 patents covering key telecommunications technologies, from Internet services to wireless data networking.

The consortium, which includes Sony (SE), Research in Motion MORE

Report: Apple, too, has its eye on Nortel's patent portfolio

Said to join Google, Intel, Ericcson and RPX in a bid for 6,000 telephony patents

This was the week we found out how valuable telecommunications patents can be.

On Tuesday, Apple (AAPL) settled its long-running patent dispute with Nokia (NOK) for what analysts estimate could be as much as $1 billion in licensing fees.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had joined the crowd of companies bidding for the telephony MORE

Nokia patent settlement a 'sweet defeat' for Apple

Having overpowered the iPhone's design patents, Nokia likely now to go after Android

The settlement of its epic 20-month patent dispute with Apple (AAPL) that Nokia (NOK) announced early Tuesday could spell trouble for the makers of Android phones.

There's no question Apple lost the legal battle that pitted its significant intellectual property holdings against Nokia's even deeper patent portfolio. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but they require MORE

Apple goes to court to protect its App Store ecosystem

Asks permission to intervene in patent infringement suits against its smaller developers

"Apple Inc. hereby respectfully moves to intervene as a defendant and counterclaim plaintiff in the above-captioned action brought by plaintiff Lodsys, LLC against seven software application developers for allegedly infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 7,222,078 and 7,620,565. Apple seeks to intervene because it is expressly licensed to provide to the Developers products and services that embody the patents in suit, MORE

Apple hits iPhone patent troll with a 'cease and desist'

The company that has been trying to extract tribute from app developers had better lawyer-up

In a contest between Apple's (AAPL) legal staff and Lodsys, the tiny Texas-based holding company that has been ordering iPhone developers to pay for technology Apple had already licensed, we'd put our money on team Cupertino.

"Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license," wrote Apple general counsel Bruce MORE

iPhone patent troll hits Twitterrific

Lodsys' attack on Apple's App Store business model has reached an A-list developer

On Friday, a small Texas company called Lodsys whose key asset seems to be four heavily licensed patents covering, among other things, in-app purchases, began sending patent-infringement letters to a handful of the 40,000 developers trying to make a living selling applications in Apple's (AAPL) crowded App Store.

Even though Apple has licensed the technologies at issue, Lodsys CEO MORE