Week 11 Blog 1 - More on Nokia

I am going to discuss another battle that is going on between Nokia and HTC. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, Nokia has a pretty exceptional patent portfolio, making it difficult for companies to win lawsuits against them. Well, this is exactly the case for HTC.

This lawsuit is taking place in Germany over the EP1312974 patent. The author of Foss Patents describes the patent, saying that it "covers the idea of a light guide integrated into a display that leads light to a sensor. The brighter it is outside, the more the background light of the display has to be turned up so as to adjust to the needs of the user's eyes. Conversely, if you use your phone in the dark, you don't need a bright screen, since it would hurt your eyes in that scenario." Nokia is asserting that HTC infringes on this patent. In addition to suing them in Germany, they have sued their equivalent U.S Patent 7,106,293 also in the United States.

If Nokia were to win this lawsuit in Germany, HTC would have to make changes to their hardware or stop selling their products in Germany. Although it would be best if HTC could come up with an alternative method for their products, the author discusses how because that feature is expected by every mobile phone user nowadays, HTC will most likely have to start paying royalties to Nokia so they can continue using the method.

Like every other lawsuit, HTC is trying its best to defend itself by claiming that this patent is invalid. The author says that this case will come to an end by late 2014 or early 2015, so we'll see what happens!

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/01/htc-demands-132-million-bond-from-nokia.html

Week 10 Blog 2 - Another Case Involving Nokia

I've discussed several cases in which Nokia has filed claims on other companies because of patent infringement, but I found another one. Android likely infringes on Nokia's patent #5,884,190, which according to the author of this article, is about "a method for making a data transmission connection from a computer to a mobile communication network for transmission of analog and/or digital signals." In other words, this patent is basically about the tethering feature on mobile phones, which allows sharing the Internet connection of the mobile phones with other devices such as laptops.
Nokia has already defeated Google and HTC for the proper legal interpretation of this patent, meaning that it would be very difficult for both of these companies to successfully defend themselves by denying use of this patent. Thus, the author suggests how unless Google and HTC are able to prove that this patent is invalid, an import ban on Android devices may happen.
I had no idea that Nokia (Symbian) had so many valuable patents. I mean, I know that they are a major telecommunications equipment company, but nowadays, the majority of mobile device users do not use their phones! But I guess that was different several years ago...
Also, this patent is only one of 40 patents Nokia has sued HTC on (I have a discussed several of those in my previous blogs). I am getting the idea that Nokia's patent portfolio is highly exceptional, and that they will continue to make a good number of assertions against companies on their patents.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/android-likely-infringes-nokia-patent.html

Week 10 Blog 1 - Google's Pledge

Several days ago, Google announced that it would not assert ten of its patents against any user, distributor, or open-source software. The author of Foss Patents discusses how this patent giveaway for Google was not generous at all. Not only does the company own at least 17,000 patents (which means that they gave out less than 1% of its patents), other companies in similar industries such as IBM and Sun Microsystems pledged 500 and 1,600 of their patents, respectively. Moreover, the author discusses how that most of the time, these pledges do not turn out to be too helpful. To illustrate this point, the ten patents Google gave out did not include any search-related patents. Reading about the contents of those ten patents from another article, I found out that they are related to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large date sets.

An analyst of WiseHarbor, Keith Mallinson explained how Google is not a company that makes money out of licensing fees, so this patent pledge was quite unsurprising. Also, Google stated how their intention is to make patent peace without making money and also to encourage other patent holders. Thereofore, it appears as if Google wanted to make a positive image of itself to the public by making such a move. 

Like the author from Foss Patents claims, Google's pledge appears to be pretty ungenerous, after reading about those other companies such as IBM and Sun Microsystems. However, I think it is a little too quick to completely judge that their move was stingy. It might turn out that some user, distributor, or open-source software adopts one or several of those ten patents and create an innovation! 

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/googles-promise-not-to-assert-10.html

http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/google-pledges-not-sue-open-source-users-or-developers-over-specified-patents-215408

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