Patents

Apple wants Steve Jobs' bio excluded from Samsung trial

If it gets its way, the jury will hear no talk of Apple waging thermonuclear war on Android

FORTUNE -- FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller has been reading through the motions Apple (AAPL) and Samsung filed in advance of their upcoming patent trial in the Northern District of California and has come across a few interesting tidbits.

Both sides want to exclude some of the things that have been written about them.

Samsung doesn't want MORE

Apple-Samsung settlement talks set (prematurely) for May

Ordered to meet on 5/21-22. But with more than 50 cases pending, it's probably too early

FORTUNE -- Tim Cook seemed to be putting some distance between himself and Steve Jobs during Tuesday's conference call when he was asked about Apple's (AAPL) flexibility in its ongoing patent disputes with the makers of Google (GOOG) Android phones.

"I've always hated litigation, and I continue to hate it," he replied. "We just want people MORE

Facebook's patent headaches: More to come?

Yahoo filed a patent suit against the social media giant. Does Amazon have a case too?

By Roger Parloff, senior editor

FORTUNE -- Last month, just weeks ahead of Facebook's highly anticipated IPO, the "it" company of the Internet got hit with a meaty patent suit. Struggling behemoth Yahoo sued Facebook in federal court, alleging that it infringes 10 of its patents, covering such functions as messaging, social commenting, and advertising display. Facebook, MORE

Apple forced to shut off push e-mail service in Germany

Motorola Mobility (and Google) give Cupertino a taste of its own patent medicine 

Following a loss three weeks ago in Germany's Mannheim Regional Court, Apple (AAPL) late Thursday informed German iPhone customers that e-mail would no longer be "pushed" to their phones -- BlackBerry style -- through their iCloud or MobileMe services.

Pending Apple's appeal, which could take months, iPhone users in Germany will have to retrieve their e-mail the old-fashioned way: by MORE

Apple goes after Motorola and Google with legal guns blazing

Seeks 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 MORE

Chutzpah: Google also wants 2.25% of every iPhone sale

It's not enough that Google borrowed the phone's look and feel to make Android?

It took a Techmeme news cycle for the import of Google's (GOOG) letter to the IEEE -- the nonprofit organization that sets technical standards for everything from AC/DC converters to Wi-Fi networks -- to sink in.

Early reports praised the company for joining Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) in their calls for adherence to the "fair, reasonable and MORE

What Motorola wants: 2.25% of Apple's iPhone sales revenue

A blogger uncovers the $2 billion dispute behind Friday's bizarre back and forth 

Apple (AAPL) watchers were shocked Friday when the company, in response to a court-ordered injunction, removed the iPhone 4 and 3GS from its online Apple Store in Germany.

The injunction was suspended before the end of the day -- and the products restored -- but the bizarre incident left analysts and investors wondering what the hell was going on.

FOSS MORE

iPhone patent wars: What's going on in Germany?

Apple forced to pull older iPhones off its online store, faces an injunction on push e-mail

UPDATE: Sales of Apple's iPhones resumed Friday. See here.

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It was a crazy day for Apple (AAPL) in Germany.

First it removed the iPhone 4 and 3GS from its German online store -- the first time, as far as we know, that the company has been forced to stop selling a product because of alleged MORE

Why Apple is in no hurry to settle its iPhone patent suits

New analysis suggests the payoff could be seven fold greater if it holds out for a win

In a note to clients issued Monday, Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore lists four possible outcomes of the patent wars being fought in courts around the world between Apple (AAPL) and the Google (GOOG) Android ecosystem:

1) settlement with per unit license fee paid to Apple;
2) a more favorable outcome where Apple handicaps Android's feature MORE

Apple vs. Android: A grueling patent war of attrition

HTC was forced to drop one feature. Motorola may have to drop another. More to come.

Many commentators took at face value HTC's declaration of "an actual victory" after the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that it had infringed Apple's (AAPL) patent on software that allowed a user to dial a number embedded in an e-mail simply by clicking on it. That particular feature was only one of 10 patents Apple MORE