Week 9 Blog 2 - Google is in Trouble

Google faced a tough week in the beginning of this month. Google's two major applications, Google Play and Google Maps were at issue in German courtrooms.
The first problem:  Nokia claimed that the Google Play application in HTC phones infringed on the EP0812120 patent, which is about a method for using services offered by a telecommunication network, a telecommunication system, and a terminal for it. Nokia also sued ViewSonic for this patent as well.
The second problem: Microsoft claimed that the Google Maps application infringed on the EP0845124 patent, which is about a computer system for identifying local resources. What's interesting is that Microsoft originally made the claim only towards Motorola Mobility (a telecommunications equipment corporation owned by Google). However, Motorola Mobility asserted that they had no knowledge of how Google Maps works. Therefore, Microsoft had no choice but to sue Google, which has caused them troubles to protect itself from this potential patent infringement.
Since these are the two of the most popular applications by Google, the company was (and still is!) in an extremely critical situation. While Nokia actually lost the lawsuit against HTC involving the Google Play application, the case with Microsoft has yet to come to a conclusion.The author of this article discusses that a decision on this lawsuit will only come after two months at the earliest. Moreover, the situation does not appear to be in Google's favor. He explains how Google will most likely have to start paying royalties to Microsoft, as Samsung, HTC, LG, and many other Android device makers have already started doing so; they recognized that they were infringing upon Microsoft's patent.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/google-faces-critical-week-in-german.html
http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/google-about-to-lose-patent-spat-with.html

Week 9 Blog 1 - One After Another

I read an article on Foss Patents today that made me laugh. It was about another Nokia vs. HTC trial. Only three days after Nokia won one of its lawsuits for a battery conserving method patent against HTC, they have already moved on to another lawsuit. Once again, Nokia is suing HTC for another one of its patents. The author of the article explains the patent: "The patent-in-suit discussed... cover(s) the feature sending messages from a particular network to a wireless device which then activates or deactivates certain programs or features based on what the message instructs to do."
The court did not reach a conclusion yesterday. HTC is trying its best to defend itself by carefully analyzing and interpreting what a "network" is. According to the author, this is a common tactic of those companies who have been sued by Nokia for this patent. This is because the description of the particular patent Nokia is suing other companies on contains the word "network,"  but not "telecommunications network." Therefore, HTC's claim is that Nokia's patent is too broad, which is something that the court struggled to decide on.
This case was very interesting to me, not only because I was surprised to read about Nokia being involved in a lawsuit with HTC only three days after they came to a conclusion on another patent, but to realize how important and essential a description for a patent can be. I really look forward to reading about the court's decision on this case.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-sues-htc-over-feature-letting.html

Week 8 Blog 2 - Update on the Nokia vs. HTC case

In one of my previous blog posts, I discussed the battle going on between Nokia and HTC. To quickly recapitulate, Nokia filed a number of patent injunctions against HTC in Germany. One of the 32 or so patents that Nokia claimed HTC was infringing upon was the EP0673175. Basically, this patent is about conserving battery power on mobile devices.
Well, I read an article on Foss Patents today about Nokia winning the German patent injunction against HTC over this power-saving technology! This did not surprise me however, since Blackberrry had lost against Nokia over a similar case, and agreed to pay royalties to Nokia for the patent.
I found it very interesting when I read about how HTC would only be infringing this patent if this particular method of conserving battery power is actually used by the owner of the mobile devices. This makes it seem very complicated...
Thus, the author explains how the injunction could be worked around by HTC is they their devices to their customers on the condition of them taking a license from Nokia. This of course, would only work out if Nokia would offer such a thing.
Well, with this win, Nokia for now has won a sales ban and a recall of infringing devices from retail. HTC currently pays royalties to Apple and Microsoft, and I predict that Nokia will be an addition to that list. On a side note, Nokia is also suing HTC for the same case in the United States, so I wonder what will happen to that case too.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-wins-german-patent-injunction.html

Week 8 Blog 1 - Samsung vs. Ericsson

The title of the first blog post I saw on Foss Patents today immediately caught my eye. It mentioned how Samsung said Ericsson was behaving like a "patent troll." I thought this was a pretty brave comment for Samsung to make, especially since Ericsson is a well developed company as well; it is the world's largest maker of equipment for building mobile telecommunications networks.
The two companies are both accusing each other of failure to comply with their FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing obligations. In November of last year, Ericsson filed a couple of federal complaints against Samsung, and in December, Samsung came back and filed ITC complaints against Ericsson about several 4G related patents.
Samsung has also responded to the federal patent infringement lawsuits of Ericsson held in Texas; it is going to countersue Ericsson over eight more patents. Those patents consists of those about methods for devices to transmit and receive information, and also about methods to compute cycle redundancy check for multiple code blocks.
Going back to the beginning, Samsung claims that Ericsson is acting like a patent troll after the company exited the smartphone industry. Ericsson seems like they are asking for unreasonable licensing fees from Samsung by threatening them to eliminate their products. Although at first, this case appears to be one of the many smartphone companies' lawsuits that we have seen so far, I feel like this is especially an interesting one to focus on, as the companies are acting quite aggressively towards one another.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/samsung-says-ericsson-behaves-like.html

Week 7 Blog 2 - InterDigital vs. Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, and ZTE

Early in January of this year InterDigital, a wireless telecommunications research and development company,  filed additional ITC complants against Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, and ZTE after extending its wireless patent licesnse agreements with RIM (Blackberry). The agreement was about coverage for 4G products, LTE, and LTE-Advanced products. Therefore, InterDigital is seeking U.S import bans against those four companies' products with 3G and 4G capabilities.
In addition to this, InterDigital had already filed complaints to the ITC in June of 2011 against Nokia, Huawei, and ZTE about seven patents. One of those patents include something about an automatic power control system for a code division multiple access, which is what we know as CDMA.
Because of this, Samsung is being accused of the their devices such as the Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab II, and 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot.
In particular, Nokia has a long history of battling with InterDigital. Several years ago, they were able to come to an agreement about their 2G patents in Europe. However, they have not reached any conclusions on their 3G patents, which is probably why InterDigital is still after Nokia.
The author of this article mentions how InterDigital regularly sues mobile device makers in order to collect patent royalties. It is also important to note that, the reason why the company files lawsuits in addition to ITC complaints is because the ITC does not award damages.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/07/interdigital-sues-huawei-zte-and-nokia.html
http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/01/interdigital-files-new-itc-complaint.html

Week 7 Blog 1 - ViewSonic exits the European Smartphone Market

In last week's blog, I talked about how Nokia was suing a few companies for patent infringement in Germany. Of those companies, I was unfamiliar with one of them - ViewSonic - so I decided to look further into this company. Well, from one of the posts from Foss Patents, I found out that this company quit its smartphone market in Europe at the beginning of this year. ViewSonic stated that they wanted to go through a change of strategy, meaning that they will focus on other products, such as projectors, monitors, audiovisual information systems and cloud-based products to sell in Europe.
To me, this makes sense. As the author of this article suggests, the smartphone market is overcrowded. Also, since Samsung is dominating the Android market, it makes sense for the other companies to look for other opportunities in different markets.
The interesting points to focus on the company's withdrawal from the smartphone market in Europe are the existing lawsuits going on in Germany between Nokia and ViewSonic. Like I mentioned earlier, Nokia sued ViewSonic along with a couple of other companies, Blackberry and HTC, about several of their patents. Since ViewSonic no longer sells any smartphones in Europe, the best Nokia will get would be the damages for past infringements. On the other hand, since Blackberry still continues to sell their smartphones in Europe, they have paid Nokia for their intellectual property.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/01/viewsonic-which-nokia-is-suing-in-us.html

Week 6 Blog 2 - Android vs. Android

At the end of last year, an Android-Android war brought attention in Korea. It was a battle between LG and Samsung, where the former requested the Korean court to completely stop the "sale, manufacture, and importation" of Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet computers. LG claims that the this product by Samsung infringed three of its display patents.
It is interesting to note that this was a response to Samsung suing LG for the infringement of seven liquid crystal display patents. It's amazing how many patents can be involved in/on a flat mobile screen. And not to mention, they both use the same mobile software platform.
The article's author explains how even though both companies are members of the Open Handset Alliance and use Android, this patent lawsuit is acceptable. He explains how if one company believes that another company steals its hardware innovations, the only legal way to stop this would be to file a lawsuit against them. Otherwise, the company would have to allow every company to copy their innovation, which they probably would not want.
Since both companies are making a serious amount of money in the smartphone industry, this battle turned out to be fierce. As mentioned above, one has sued the other for infringing seven of its display patents, and the other has fought back by claiming three of its patents were infringed upon. Last month however, LG announced that they wanted an amicable negotiation with Samsung.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/12/android-android-war-raging-in-korea-as.html
http://www.techfever.net/2013/02/lg-drops-injunction-request-against-samsung/

Week 6 Blog 1 - HTC vs. Nokia

Last Spring, Nokia filed a number of patent injunctions against HTC both in the United States and in Germany. Nokia claimed that HTC was using 32 of their patents without a license. However, HTC has made multiple attempts to fight back, even through its own offensive actions.
As I have discussed in my previous post, HTC was also sued by Apple last year, but fought back by countersuing them. After a series of lawsuits, they came to an agreement, which proposed that HTC was responsible to pay $8 to Apple for each smartphone sold. Thus, even though HTC does not have the strongest patent portfolio like this article mentions, this company is not an easy company to get by; if a battle is brought on, they will fight back.
One of the patents in discussion is the EP2073096, which is about conserving mobile devices' batteries. HTC asserts that this Nokia patent on reducing power consumption is standard essential. If this is the case, it would enable HTC to countersue Nokia over SEPs (standard essential patents).
However, after researching further on this topic, I found out that Blackberry and ViewSonic were also sued by Nokia for the same reasons HTC. It turns out that Blackberry has already settled some of the claims, including this patent in question. The result was that Blackberry would have to start paying royalties to Nokia.
Therefore, I think it would be challenging for HTC to win this battle; especially the lawsuit involving the EP2073096. However, since HTC has filed numerous cases in Germany, it has the potential to win some of the cases, like it did with Apple.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/02/htc-hits-back-at-nokia-with-german.html
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/htc-likely-to-settle-power-optimisation-patent-case-against-nokia-106603