Patents
Brief of the day: Apple on Google as a 'friend of the court'
May 8, 2013: 9:10 AM ETApple to Google: If you've got something to say about Samsung, join the damned suit.
FORTUNE -- Following its $1.05 billion patent infringement victory last summer, Apple (AAPL) appealed the district court judge's decision not to ban the sale of the Samsung devices that the jury determined had infringed multiple Apple patents.
Google (GOOG) and several other companies now want to file an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief to the appeals court in support of Samsung.
As Apple points out in its reply, filed Tuesday, Google is hardly a disinterested party:
The lead party on the brief, Google, Inc., admittedly has a direct interest in the outcome of this appeal. As the motion explains, Google is the developer of the Android operating system running on the Samsung smartphones that Apple seeks to enjoin in this case. That interest conflicts with the traditional role of an amicus as "an impartial friend of the court -- not an adversary party in interest in the litigation." United States v. Michigan, 940 F.2d 143, 165 (6th Cir. 1991) (emphasis in original)
Indeed, when amici have such a stake in the outcome of the case, courts have denied them leave to participate to prevent "an end run around court-imposed limitations on the length of parties' briefs."
See: Apple Opposition to Google et al. Amicus Curiae Brief in Samsung Case.
-
A bad month for Android: April brought 7 major patent setbacks
April was the cruelest month yet for Google and Motorola on the patent front.
FORTUNE -- It was Google (GOOG) against the world last month, as it fought and lost patent battles directly or by proxy with Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Nokia (NOK), HTC and ZTE. "Google shoot blanks in smartphone patent wars," wrote Thomson Reuters' Reynolds Holding. Or as The Verge's Nilay Patel put it: "Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola?"
FOSS MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 3, 2013 8:27 AM ET -
Sony patent is hilarious, terrifying
Is this the future of interactive advertising? Hopefully not.
FORTUNE -- Maybe patent illustrations shouldn't be fair game. After all they are intentionally crude, existing to be simultaneously vague and specific, laying claim to an innovation or idea without giving too much away. And yet, Sony (SNE) patent 8246454 B2 is irresistible. Filed in 2009 and published last summer, the patent describes "methods, systems, and computer programs for converting television commercials MORE
Matt Vella, senior editor - Apr 30, 2013 1:32 PM ET -
How much are Samsung's dirty tricks hurting Apple's shares?
Conspiracy theories grow after charges it funded agent provocateurs in three countries.
FORTUNE -- There's a somewhat paranoid theory being circulated among Apple (AAPL) investors in the wake of the company's seven-month, $296-billion loss in market value.
It goes something like this:
Revealed as a patent copycat last summer by a California jury's $1.05 billion verdict -- a PR disaster of the first order that shook top management and tarnished the image of MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 20, 2013 12:00 PM ET -
Did China steal Japan's high-speed train?
The company that makes Japan's legendary Shinkansen bullet trains certainly regrets working in China.
By Michael Fitzpatrick
FORTUNE -- One China defender recently claimed his countryman's "bandit innovators" could be good for the world. That was small consolation for the Japanese, who say that China pirated their world-famous bullet train technology.
"Don't worry too much about Chinese companies imitating you, they are creating value for you down the road," said Li Daokui, MORE
Apr 15, 2013 5:00 AM ET -
Apple v. Samsung, Round 2: Death by narrowing?
Apple will get its second day in court, but must narrow its claims to Samsung's benefit
FORTUNE -- "I don't know if we need two cases on this," Judge Lucy Koh told attorneys for Apple (AAPL) and Samsung last month. She was referring to two suits Apple filed against Samsung in her U.S. District Court alleging infringement of two sets of patents by two sets of Samsung devices.
Apple won the first case, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 9, 2013 11:55 AM ET -
Apple v. Samsung: Justice delayed is justice denied
Judge Koh wants a 2014 trial frozen until appeals from a 2011 complaint are exhausted
FORTUNE -- In July 2011, Motorola (GOOG) filed a complaint in Germany's Mannheim District Court charging that Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox was infringing two of its video-coding patents. In May 2012 -- less than nine months later -- the court granted an injunction.
Contrast that with Judge Lucy Koh's federal court in the Northern District of California.
In April 2011, three MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 17, 2013 2:45 PM ET -
Amid the patent wars, a powerful pact of non-aggression
The expanding reach of the IBM-supported Open Invention Network reflects the pervasiveness of the Linux operating system.
By Roger Parloff, senior editor
FORTUNE -- The Open Invention Network, a community set up by an IBM-led consortium in 2005 to foster a safe patent environment for developers and users of the free, open-source software operating system Linux, now has more than 500 signatories, the group announced today. The group surpassed that symbolic MORE
Feb 13, 2013 9:37 AM ETPosted in: IBM, Linux, Open Invention Network, open source, Patent infringement, Patent Troll, Patents -
Samsung still owes Apple $1.05 billion, at least for now
Apple wanted the award tripled. Samsung wanted it thrown out. The Judge did neither.
FORTUNE -- After the jury turned in its verdict in the patent trial of the century -- ordering Samsung to pay Apple a record $1.05 billion in damages -- both sides submitted a long list of motions to modify or overturn one or more of the jury's findings. Two stood out:
Apple (AAPL) claimed it was entitled to MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 30, 2013 6:03 AM ET -
Apple v. Samsung: (Patent) trial of the century
A user's guide to the Apple v. Samsung patent battle
FORTUNE -- If there is such a thing as a titillating patent trial, Apple v. Samsung makes the top of the list. In early 2011 the iPhone maker, based in Cupertino, Calif., filed a complaint against the Korean company, claiming that 28 Samsung devices infringed on Apple's intellectual property -- including a so-called design patent for a rectangular slab with rounded MORE
Michal Lev-Ram, writer - Jan 22, 2013 5:00 AM ET
