Apple patents
Apple has received 25 New Patents Covering Camera Stabilization, Cellular
MacBook and 23 more. Also granted was a SIRI like application dating far back as 2003, that would work with phone, iPod and a car.
The rest is in the image below and you can check them at USPTO or PatentlyApple.
Google Asks To Reexamine Lodsys Patents http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Some how I missed this report by Wired about Google reacting to Lodsys' litigation against App developers. Google have requested USPTO for reexamination of two of Lodsys's four patents: the '078 patent and the '565 patent, both of which were used in litigation against app developers.
But again, FOSS Patents tells us that this request by itself might not be enough unless Google supplements it with more useful and forceful measures. With our limited law knowledge we do not know what those measures are (you can follow and read those articles to understand better) but we applaud the Google's move. Those app developers do not have the means to continue in such quests.
Apple is also actively engaged in these litigious cases by Lodsys to support developers.
Hopefully this will get a stay on the lawsuits (FOSS patents think this is hard because Eastern Texas courts where Lodsys filled the cases has a habit of only staying 20% of the law suits) but I guess 20% is better than none. EFF has also sounded on the issue;
“Reexaminations are often times a tool used to stay ongoing litigation, It’s much, much cheaper than federal litigation, which on average costs between two and five million dollars.” ” said Julie Samuels, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights advocacy group.Wired via FOSS Patents
Patent Infringement By Apple http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
Operating Systems Solutions, LCC, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple for OS X's fast booting operation.
Patently Apple, site celebrating Apple's inventions thinks this a work of patent troll and that LG Electronics is involved some where in the equation.
Looking at the patent, it looks like a legitimate patent and does not seem to be like many Broad patents that are in the play now in the mobile arena. Except for the fact that Operating Systems Solutions, LCC, does not make laptops or computers that use the patent technology, I do not see any similarity to the likes of Lodsys or Macrosolve.
FOSS Patents has a much better review of the fact and thinks it is a precursor to a wider patent war between Apple and LG.
I do not believe in ridiculous patents, that includes some of Apples but I think it is need to be watched as over all, innovation or simple app developments have been thwarted by stupid patents.
Apple should also know when it tries to clamp down on competitors, someone somewhere will use the same sword on Apple. So Apple use that 70 Billion and start buying some more patents, like
FOSS Patents via Patently Apple
Like in these cases and others we use part of the public record for journalistic news posting purposes. Readers should know that we do not offer a legal opinion on the merit of these cases and lawsuits, simply because we have no legal knowledge. The knowledge comes from what we read. Also we do not like patents in the way now issued by USPTO and used by companies and partial. Basically we call most of these patent holders trolls.
NTP Email Patents Patent troll http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
NTP, a patent investment company, has won an appeals court ruling over the validity of it's patents.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ordered the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to reconsider findings that invalidated elements of seven NTP patents,
Court did uphold the rejection of an eighth. The seven patents under reconsideration will remain valid and enforceable during the review.
NTP uses these patents to sue Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. (T), Yahoo! Inc. and T-Mobile USA Inc and other companies in infringement lawsuits.
Patent troll are alive and will kill the innovation.
Via Bloomberg
iPhone patent http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
USPTO has awarded the patent Apple has been after for years, the iPhone patent was awarded yesterday and it is so broad that, if exercised, it could drive all other phones off the US soil, at least.
"A computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display. An N-finger translation gesture is detected on or near the touch screen display. In response, the page content, including the displayed portion of the frame content and the other content of the page, is translated to display a new portion of page content on the touch screen display. An M-finger translation gesture is detected on or near the touch screen display, where M is a different number than N. In response, the frame content is translated to display a new portion of frame content on the touch screen display, without translating the other content of the page. "
Yes that is just the beginning, you can follow the patent link to get more information.
"This patent covers a kind of functionality without which it will be hard to build a competitive smartphone, Unless this patent becomes invalidated, it would allow Apple to stifle innovation and bully competitors." Florian Mueller, and his blog, lately we have been refering in all cases of current patent issues, have told PCMag.
U.S. patent number 7,966,578 via PCMAG
MacroSolve is nastier that Lodsys http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
If you thought Lodsys was a bad patent troll, it seems MacroSolve is worst, from the way they attack and the patent itself. I like to see how the community respond to this. Microsolve seem to sue first and ask questions later with their broad patent. Every patent I see, makes me wonder what type of morons man stations at USPTO. I hope enough people will work together to get this patent invalidated, electronic forms and data exchange over the internet is as old as the WWW itself. I see every web page as a electronic form; you type an address into your browser and you are provided with data and response.
According to the FOSS Patents of Florian Mueller (and he has a better write up as well);
In terms of lending itself to incredibly broad interpretations and infringement allegations, MacroSolve's patent-in-suit is similarly dangerous as Lodsys's in-app upgrade patent. MacroSolve is suing companies over U.S. Patent No. 7,822,816 on a "system and method for data management", "including the steps of: creating a questionnaire; transmitting the questionnaire to a remote computer; executing the questionnaire in the remote computer to prompt a user for responses to questions of the questionnaire; transmitting the responses to a sever via a network; making the responses available on the Web." In other words, anyone who distributes electronic forms via the Internet or to mobile devices and then collects and evaluates the answers could be accused of infringing the patent.
If the control contains unauthorized text, the control application may alert the user, the administrator or other designated individuals of the presence of such text. The control application may require the user to replace the unauthorized text or may automatically delete the text or the entire communication.Looks like now you will need some brains to do any SEXTING on iOS devices. My iPhone, like techcrunch's change the word gspot to happy, so is the hspot, but ispot is ispot! But Apple allows you to have an App called Gspot (G-Spot)
#EFF C2 VoIP Patent Fails In Obviousness Test.http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
In its war against worst patents, EFF has scored a minor but very important victory against one of the top ten worst patents in EFF’s Patent Busting Project,, USPTO has agreed that C2 Patent in question, “Method and Apparatus for Implementing a Computer Network/Internet Telephone System,” does not pass the obviousness test.
This is not a final decision by USPTO as it needs to wait for C2 response and make an argument in support of it's patent. VoIP Patents
EFF Anouncement via FreeSWITCH
iPhone Design Patent http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/
US Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent for, the ornamental design of an electronic device, on iPhone and iPod Touch design. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive were listed as the patent holders of the design. With this in hand, now Apple will be able to go after anyone who even come close to their holy grail.
8X8 Gets Virtual Telephone Extension Patent http://snapvoip.blogspot.com
This is the second time I am mentioning USPTO, as I just read that it has awarded a patent for Virtual Telephone Extension to 8X8.
"A method for routing telephone calls to communication devices using telephone networks, each communication device having a unique device identifier, the method comprising: assigning identifier data to each of a plurality of users, the identifier data for each user including at least two unique telephone numbers and at least one unique device identifier; and in response to receiving a call through one of the telephone networks, matching a telephone number in the call with one of the at least two telephone numbers assigned to a particular user, and switching the call to a destination communication device designated by the device identifier in the identifier data for the particular user."But the funny thing is, Andy Abramson alerted that it looks very similar to the patent issued to Vonage for Virtual Numbers, "Method and Apparatus for Placing a Long Distance Call Based on a Virtual Phone Number," a few days ago,
