Apple did not infringe a live-streaming technology patent held by Emblaze Ltd., a jury decided earlier today. The conclusion to the lawsuit comes less than two weeks after it started, and affects both Apple and third-party developers that use its live-streaming technology in mobile apps.
According to Emblaze, Apple’s HTTP live-streaming service was “nothing more than Emblaze’s patented solution under a different name.” Because Apple required developers to use its own live-streaming platform, developers of apps like MLB At Bat and WatchESPN were allegedly being forced to violate the 2002 Emblaze patent. The jury disagreed, however, and ruled in Apple’s favor.
Apple settled out of court in the latest e-books price-fixing suit brought against the company, allowing the company to dodge an $840 million bullet, as reported by Bloomberg. The case, brought against the Cupertino company by multiple states and consumers, was set to go before a jury next month, but that will no longer be necessary.
The terms of the settlement have not yet been revealed, and the opposing sides of the case have one month to request formal acceptable of their agreement by the court.
Earlier this year, Apple (sort of) won a trademark lawsuit to Mexican telecommunications company iFone over the use of the phonetically-identical “iPhone” brand. The iFone trademark was originally filed in 2003, and in 2009 the company filed a suit against Apple. In March 2013 the case ended with the decision that Apple had in fact not infringed on the mark.
The logic behind the ruling was based on the difference in the two companies’ markets. While iFone sells telecommunications services, Apple sells smartphones (but not actual telecommunications service). Because of this, Apple would be allowed to continue using the name.
We say Apple only “sort of” won the case here, becuase unfortunately, the Cupertino company’s Mexican carrier partners were caught in the legal crossfire, as demonstrated by a ruling today that placed the burden of the infringement squarely on them [translation].
Based on the most recent verdict in Apple v. Samsung, Apple is attempting to seek a permanent injunction against any Samsung device that infringes upon its patents.
While this includes the devices that were at the center of the latest court case, it also includes “software or code capable of implementing any Infringing Feature, and/or any feature not more than colorably different therefrom,” which could be construed to mean current and even future devices.
We’ve written about former Apple employee Wayne Goodrich before. Back in 2012 he launched a lawsuit against Apple claiming that co-founder Steve Jobs told him in 2005 he’d be guaranteed a job for life at the company. That was after being fired by Apple a year after Jobs’ death despite his guarantee of job security. Now, Goodrich, who was an executive producer of public presentations and with Apple for almost 20 years, has been given the go ahead for the lawsuit by a judge in Santa Clara (via BizJournals): Expand Expanding Close
Apple software designer Greg Christie testifies during the Samsung trial
Apple has made its case against Samsung in the patent lawsuit that never ends, and the company’s attorneys rested today after an expert witness testified that Samsung should pay the full $2.191 billion in damages. As CNET reports, Quantitative Economic Solutions economist Christopher Vellturo told the court today that Apple’s claim to over $2 billion is valid based on estimated profits lost to Samsung’s infringing devices as well as royalties owed to Apple for use of its protected software designs.
John Hauser, another of Apple’s expert witnesses, testified earlier this week that Samsung’s mobile phones would have been much less appealing to the public if they had lacked features that Apple created, such as the ubiquitous “slide to unlock” gesture. Together the two experts weaved a tale of desperation in which Samsung is depicted as having ripped off Apple’s design when it failed to create a compelling product that could stand its own against the juggernaut of the iPhone.
This case is really only halfway over, though. Samsung’s attorneys will now have a chance to defend against this narrative, providing testimony and evidence to support its own view and argue against the legitimacy of Apple’s software patents. Of course, it’s likely that once this case is over the two rivals will just find another reason to sue each other.
Suing Apple seems to be the thing to do these days. While the company is locked into a furious, seemingly-unending battle with Samsung, another suit has been announced today by two Swiss sister companies called OpenTV and Nagravision.
According to a press release by the The Kudelski Group, the parent company of the two filing suit, OpenTV focuses on software that includes “advanced program guides, video-on-demand, personal video recording, interactive and addressable advertising and a variety of enhanced television applications,” while Nagravision “provides security and multiscreen user experience solutions for the monetization of digital media.”
While the five patents in question aren’t specifically named in the press release, it’s safe to assume that they are related to video playback technologies included in OS X and iOS (both of which are named as infringing in the press release). iAds, iTunes, the App Store, and the Apple TV are also listed.
Apple is facing a new class-action lawsuit from iBooks customers over price-fixing practices according to Reuters. As has been previously argued, Apple conspired with book publishers to hike the prices of ebooks, a violation of U.S. anti-trust law. The Department of Justice won its case against Apple for the same reason last year, and Apple is currently in the middle of appealing that case.
This new lawsuit is a civil case being brought by customers affected by the price-fixing scheme. Today U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that the customers suing could do so as a group despite Apple’s objections. The actual trial will be scheduled for later this year. Expand Expanding Close
If you’ve paid attention to the ongoing feud between Apple and Google in recent years, you might think that the conflict is the result of Google’s decision to create a competitor to the iPhone after working in tandem with Apple to create the iconic device. And you’d be forgiven for thinking that.
But according to some emails sent by Google’s Sergey Brin back in 2005 that recently surfaced during a class-action lawsuit over the do-not-hire policies of the two companies (among others), that may not be the case. This “thermonuclear war,” as Steve Jobs put it, was a long time coming. Android was just the last straw.
Update: Zdnet Korea reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung’s JK Shin met in the US last week ahead of the companies returning to court in San Jose next month. The unconfirmed, translated report appears to claims the executives were asked by the courts to reach an agreement by Feb. 19, but the case looks set to go ahead after settlement talks reportedly failed.
Apple’s head of marketing will be called to the stands by Samsung in the latest patent dispute between the rival companies. Schiller will testify on topics surrounding the creation and marketing of many of Apple’s iconic products, including the iPhone and iPad, according to a statement released by Samsung. The South Korean company has also said there’s a chance it could call Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPhone marketing, to testify as well.
Apple is also planning to put several of its own executives on the stand, possibly including Scott Forstall, who oversaw the development of iOS until he resigned his position in 2012. This would be Forstall’s first public appearance since he left Apple. Both Forstall and Schiller testified against Samsung in an August, 2012 hearing.
arsTechnica drew our attention to some unusually forthright comments from Apple’s lawyers on the subject of patent trolls, in a public FTC filing. Apple revealed that it had been the subject of 92 lawsuits by patent assertion entities over the course of the past three years, more than any other company.
Apple has rarely lost on the merits. But victory figures are small consolation, because in every one of these cases, Apple has been forced to bear its legal fees. This reality is the lifeblood of the patent assertion industry… Indeed, the opening line of many negotiations is some form of, “What we’re asking for is less than it will cost you to litigate this case to judgment.” It should come as no surprise, then, that despite its success in litigating the merits, for business purposes Apple has agreed to a settlement in 51 of the 57 closed cases.
Apple’s legal team used particularly direct language when referring to Lodsys, a company which claims to hold a patent on in-app purchases and which litigates against small developers who cannot afford the legal costs of fighting the case … Expand Expanding Close
The Apple/Sony/Blackberry/Microsoft-backed Rockstar consortium is involved in yet another patent lawsuit. This time, several large US cable companies are up in arms over the idea that Rockstar is preparing to break up its patent portfolio into a host of smaller shell companies, each of which would hold a portion of the key patents needed by said cable companies.
Essentially any cable company that failed to license the entire former Nortel portfolio could be litigated against, facing lawsuits and sky-high legal costs.
It’s possible that the cable companies also see Apple TV as a threat to their channel packaging business model.
Reuters reports that the CEOs of both Samsung and Apple have agreed to sit down with their lawyers and hash out a settlement in the latest of the never-ending patent suits between the two companies. Legal teams from both companies decided on this course of action earlier this week.
The meeting will take place some time next month, ahead of the actual court proceedings scheduled for March. If the two companies managed to reach a settlement, they could bypass the entire court process, saving both sides of the fight from financial and legal headaches.
Rockstar, a consortium backed by Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and other tech giants, is planning to sell off most of its patent portfolio, according to Bloomberg. The group beat Google in a bidding war for these patents, which previously belonged to Nortel, but is now seeking to off-load them—or at least the ones that have served no purpose.
Rockstar does plan to hold on to a few of the key patents, specifically the ones involved in lawsuits against Google and other companies. Several of the patents have already been sold to Spherix Inc. as part of a deal that would include Rockstar sharing in any future financial profits based on the patents, according to the report. Sales of the remaining patents could result in similar arrangements.
Last week a jury determined that Samsung violated several of Apple’s smartphone patents, a ruling which resulted in Samsung being faced with hefty fees for damages and lost revenue to Apple. Following the decision, Samsung then filed an emergency motion with the court to stop the payments while the United States Patent and Trademark Office re-evaluates the validity of Apple’s key patent.
Specifically, the Patent Office has issued an advisory that declares the patent on Apple’s “pinch to zoom” gesture invalid. This is the only patent in this case for which Apple can collect damages for lost revenue. Samsung argues that the jury’s decision should also be overturned since Samsung cannot be held liable for violating an invalid patent.
Tonight the court disagreed with Samsung, however, noting that Apple still has several options for appealing the invalidation and reclaiming the patent, at which point the jury’s decision would remain valid. US District Court Judge Koh ruled that the $290 million in damages is to be paid until the final word on the patent’s validity is determined. Only then can Samsung petition for a stay of damages.
Google, Samsung, and several other Android handset manufacturers are being sued by Rockstar, a consortium backed by Apple and several other tech companies, over alleged infringement of several search patents acquired by Rockstar from Nortel in 2011. Last year HTC reached a ten-year agreement with Apple as part of a patent infringement settlement. That deal would result in both companies licensing existing and future patents from one another, but it seems that agreement does not apply in this case.
The seven patents in question deal with matching search terms to relevant advertisements. Google is primarily a search and advertising company, so a loss in this case could be a serious blow. At the heart of the suit is Google’s Android platform, which Rockstar says infringes these web search patents. Because Samsung, HTC, Huawei, and others build on this platform, they are also being named in the suit.
Rockstar acquired the patents for over $4 billion last year and claims that Google’s continued use of the unlicensed technology is a wilful infringement of the consortium’s intellectual property.
A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit against Apple and several other companies can proceed as a class-action suit today after determining that a significant number of employees across the tech industry were hurt by “do-not-hire” arrangements between their employers and other companies. The policies in question were practiced by Apple, Google, Adobe, Pixar, and more as a way of keeping their own employees from defecting to competitors for higher pay. Essentially the agreements barred two companies from offering jobs to competing employees for a higher salary. Because doing so gave employees leverage with which to bargain for higher pay at their own jobs, employers were often faced with the decision to either pay any given employee more to keep them around or lose them to a competitor willing to pay more.
We are disappointed that the U.S. Trade Representative has decided to set aside the exclusion order issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC’s decision correctly recognized that Samsung has been negotiating in good faith and that Apple remains unwilling to take a license.
Today’s decision is not the first time in which the United States has sided with Apple over Samsung. Last summer, a California court granted Apple a $1 billion dollar verdict in a wide ranging case regarding Apple and Samsung’s mobile product design patents. Apple CEO Tim Cook called that win an “important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.”
Update: Apple provided a comment to AllThingsD and confirmed it will appeal the decision:
“Apple did not conspire to fix ebook pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations. When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We’ve done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge’s decision.”
Reuters reports that a judge just ruled that Apple conspired to raise the retail prices of e-books and said a trial for damages will soon follow:
The decision by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote[pictured, right] in Manhattan is a victory for the U.S. government and various states, which the judge said are entitled to injunctive relief. The publishers have already settled with the federal government on e-book pricing. Cote ruled after a non-jury trial that ended on June 20.
Apple warned that a guilty verdict in its e-book price-fixing case could have a negative impact on how digital media deals are negotiated in the US and Apple CEO Tim Cook even called the suit ‘bizarre’:
The e-book case to me is bizarre. We’ve done nothing wrong there, and so we’re taking a very principled position. … We’re not going to sign something that says we did something we didn’t do. … So we’re going to fight.
The DOJ had argued that Apple had conspired to raise prices with all of the publishers and hurt rival Amazon.
Interestingly, according to the NYTimes, one of the most damning pieces of evidence in the government’s case is the video below of Steve Jobs talking with Walt Mossberg. Per Daring Fireball: Mossberg asks Jobs why someone would buy a book for $14.99 from the iBookstore when they could buy the same book from Amazon for $9.99.
Jobs: Well, that won’t be the case.
Mossberg: Meaning you won’t be $14.99, or they won’t be $9.99?
Apple’s long-running lawsuit against Amazon for its use of the “App Store” trademark might finally be coming to an end as Reuters reports a judge has dismissed the case at the request of the companies. The report claims U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in California dismissed the case “after Apple issued to Amazon a covenant not to sue, eliminating the need for Amazon to pursue a related counterclaim.”
“We no longer see a need to pursue our case,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. “With more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, customers know where they can purchase their favorite apps.”
A spokesperson for Amazon said “This was a decision by Apple to unilaterally abandon the case, and leave Amazon free to use ‘appstore’. Expand Expanding Close
Back in May, Apple was attempting to add Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4 as an infringing device in its ongoing, second major patent dispute with Samsung in California. It was also claiming that Samsung infringed two Siri related patents with the device’s Google Now voice assistant feature. Now, according to a report from Bloomberg, Apple has been denied its request to add the device with U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal claiming it would be a “a “tax on the court’s resources”:
Adding another product to the case is a “tax on the court’s resources,” Grewal said in the ruling. “Each time these parties appear in the courtroom, they consume considerable amounts of the court’s time and energy, which takes time way from other parties who also require and are entitled to the court’s attention.”
Apple lawyer Josh Krevitt claims that denying to add the device in the ongoing patent suit would force Apple to “‘file a new lawsuit’ because the Samsung products covered by the case will be out of date by trial next year.” Expand Expanding Close
Nearly three years after the device first launched, GigaOm points us to a recently filed class action lawsuit that claims Apple’s iPhone 4 has a defective power button. The lawsuit claims that a defective flex cable typically causes the on/off switch to fail shortly after the device’s one year warranty has expired. It also claimsApple is aware of the problem, which is costing users around $149 to fix off of warranty.
Apple of course still sells the iPhone 4 through a number of carrier partners as its low end, $0 down iPhone option.
According to the lawsuit, “thousands of iPhone 4 users have suffered” from the issue that Apple allegedly knew existed before manufacturing and selling the device. The problem has never received a lot of mainstream media coverage or a response from Apple, but the lawsuit notes that a support forum on Apple’s website boasts over 800K views since first popping up in January 2011. Expand Expanding Close
In its ongoing second major patent trial against Samsung, Apple yesterday filed a statement with the US District Court in California claiming that after examining the recently released Galaxy S4 it has “concluded that it is an infringing device and accordingly intends to move for leave to add the Galaxy S4” to its long list of 22 infringing products. Apple is hoping Judge Lucy Koh allows the S4 to be added, but in line with the court’s request to reduce the number of infringing devices ahead of a trial scheduled for spring 2014, Apple has also agreed to remove without prejudice one of the other 22 infringing devices from Samsung it currently has listed.
Apple’s current list of infringing Samsung products include Admire, Captivate Glide, Conquer 4G, Dart, Exhibit II 4G, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 10.1, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy Player 4.0, Galaxy Player 5.0, Galaxy Rugby Pro, Galaxy SII, Galaxy SII Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy SII Skyrocket, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 2 10, Illusion, and Stratosphere.
The filing also highlights a disagreement in which Samsung believes each carrier variant of a specific device should be counted separately. For example, “the Galaxy Nexus activated on Sprint must be counted separately from the Galaxy Nexus activated on Verizon; and the Galaxy Nexus operating on Sprint running Android version 4.0 must be counted separately from the Galaxy Nexus operating on Sprint, but running Android version 4.1.” Apple, however, claims that Samsung has not itself applied this logic: Expand Expanding Close
In March Apple decided to add “offers in-app purchases” warnings in iTunes and on the App Store following a class action lawsuit brought on by parents arguing the iOS freemium model, i.e. in-app purchases, allowed children to easily rack up thousands of dollars. Today, as noted by AppAdvice, Apple has now added a new “Learn More About In-App Purchases” section on the App Store detailing how in-app purchases work and how parents can manage they preferences through Parental Controls (pictured below). On a related note, in the video above IGN shows off how kids could easily spend thousands of dollars in apps that aggressively push ridiculously expensive in-app purchases to games clearly aimed at children.
