Filed under: Cellphones

We could start off by telling you just how much this decision will hurt Qualcomm and just how celebratory the mood must be at Broadcom, but instead, we’ll key you in on this quote: “The appeals court also rejected Qualcomm’s request for a new trial.” At long last, we may have actually heard the end of what has seemed like a never-ending battle between the aforementioned parties. Today, a US Appeals court upheld an earlier ruling that Qualcomm had indeed infringed upon two Broadcom patents while ruling that a third patent in question was invalid. The ruling is obviously a huge win for Broadcom, who will soon be bathing in Benjamins as Qualcomm is forced to pay mandatory royalties for the chips it sells during the “sunset period” ending January 31, 2009.

[Via Reuters]

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Filed under: Gaming

Ruh roh. Those wildly flung patent infringement claims tossed out by Hillcrest Laboratories could have some merit, but even if not, it’ll be the ITC making the call. The US International Trade Commission has given itself the green light to investigate the allegations made by the aforesaid company, which state that Nintendo infringed on four of its patents in order to make obscenely large quantities of cash with the hot-selling Wii. There’s no telling how high (or low) this is in the agency’s priority list, but we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground for some sort of resolution, regardless.

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Filed under: GPS

It looks like U.S. International Trade Commission judge Carl Charneski has managed to cause quite a stir in the GPS industry this month, with him first ruling earlier this month that chipmaker SiRF infringed on six of Broadcom’s GPS patents, and him now recommending that the ITC issue an all out product import ban on products using the offending chips. Given that one of the supposedly infringing chips is the ever-present SiRF Star III, that would obviously shake things up in a pretty big way. A final decision on a ban won’t come until December, however, and SiRF looks to be exploring all of its options in the meantime, including asking the U.S. Patent Office for reexamination of the contested patents. As Reuters reports though, that hasn’t stopped SiRF’s shares from falling 24 percent to an all time low on Tuesday, and at least one GPS device manufacturer doesn’t look to be waiting around to see how things shake out either, with DigiTimes now reporting that Mitac is set to stop using SiRF chips in its GPS devices in the fourth quarter of this year. Then again, that is DigiTimes, but we doubt that’ll be much consolation for SiRF right about now.

Read - Reuters, “SiRF hit after ITC judge urges product import ban”
Read - DigiTimes, “Mitac to give up SiRF GPS solutions due to patent dispute”

[Via Linux Devices]

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

In the second such incident in as many months, Microsoft has been accused of using a foreign organization’s intellectual property without proper compensation, this time over a proprietary method of inputting Chinese characters called ZhengMa. Following last month’s copyright suit in the Philippines, Redmond is now facing accusations from Chinese tech firm Zhongyi Electronic that it has been using the latter company’s technology “without commercial agreement for a decade.” Microsoft, for its part, denies the claims, stating that there was in fact an agreement in place and that it was fulfilling its fiduciary duties as laid out in that agreement. According to Reuters, a lawsuit may be in the works once Zhongyi figures out how many infringing copies of Windows are in the wild.

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Filed under: Cellphones

No, this isn’t some horrific dream stuck on repeat. The legal quarrels between Nokia and Qualcomm are actually still ongoing, and while a US International Trade Commission judge has indeed issued an initial determination that favors Nokia, you can bet your bottom dollar that Qualcomm will be “petitioning the commission for a review.” Nevertheless, judge Paul Luckern reportedly “found no infringement or violation by Nokia of the three asserted Qualcomm patents,” which consequently led Nokia’s CFO to proclaim that this was simply “another failed attempt by Qualcomm to mislead both Nokia and the telecommunications industry.” Of course, we wouldn’t recommend striking this battle off as complete — after all, the determination now has to be forwarded on to the full commission for review, and it’s not slated to dole out a final call until April.

[Via Yahoo / Reuters]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops, Tablet PCs

You don’t have to look far outside of the Eastern District of Texas to find yourself a fresh patent infringement case, and sure enough, that’s precisely where this one was filed. Getting dinged up today is none other than the Round Rock powerhouse and Motion Computing, both of which are being sued for so-called willful infringement on Typhoon Touch Technologies / Nova Mobility Systems touch panel patents. Apparently, the two defendants are being accused of profiting off of two particular patents without paying the plaintiffs their respective royalties, and the lawsuit is seeking to “enjoin Dell and Motion Computing from the continued violation of [the] patents” while also extracting a presumably hefty sum of cash. No specific products are blamed, but we’re told that the patents cover technology used in tablet PCs, slate PCs, handheld PCs, UMPCs, PDAs and a host of other gear.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

Just months after a slew of OLPC XOs made their way into Nigeria, a Nigerian-owned company is filing suit against Nicholas Negroponte and the OLPC Association for patent infringement. Lagos Analysis and subsidiary LANCOR filed the lawsuit on November 22nd in Nigeria, claiming that the aforementioned parties willfully and illegally reverse engineered its keyboard driver source codes. Turns out, LANCOR makes its ends by selling region specific-based keyboards that allow for direct access inputting of “accents, symbols and diacritical marks during regular typing,” and sure enough, the XO’s board looks mighty similar to those offered up by the plaintiff. Additionally, the outfit is in the process of “filing a similar lawsuit against OLPC in a United States Federal Court,” so we’d recommend snagging an XO or two before Nik Neg and company are forced to inflate prices to pay off those highfalutin lawyers.

[Image courtesy of Konyin and Digital Crusader]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

Last we heard from the seemingly endless Nokia / Qualcomm kvetch-fest, the former company was soliciting the ITC’s help in barring US Qualcomm chip imports, but for those wishing on their lucky stars that this spat would simply vanish into the night, we’ve got marginally good news. Apparently, a trio of judges in a Dutch court ruled that it didn’t have jurisdiction to rule on the phone maker’s claims outside of The Netherlands, thus, the patent-licensing case against Qualcomm was dismissed. Aside from claiming that its “jurisdiction was limited,” the court also stated that Nokia’s gripe was “too broad to give a reasoned decision.” Of note, a German court also dismissed the case just last month on “similar grounds,” but if you were counting on Nokia to just take the news in stride, we doubt you’ll be pleased to hear that it’s already “considering if it will appeal the decision.”

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals

We had a hunch that this spat between HP and Acer wouldn’t just fade away into the sunset, and sure enough, HP is on the receiving end of the latest scuffle. Most recently, Acer has filed patent counterclaims against HP in the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin and with the US International Trade Commission, alleging that HP “infringed on patents related to personal computers, servers and peripheral devices.” Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of it, but Acer did go on to state that it would “take all necessary steps to protect and enforce its patented technologies.” If the gloves weren’t already off, we’d say they are now.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

One step forward, two (or more) steps back. That seems to be the recurring theme for Vonage these days, as just hours after officially requesting a review of the Verizon patent decision, the firm is now settling its legal dispute with Klausner Technologies. The settlement is the second this week for the outfit, and while no financial terms of the deal were discussed, Vonage was granted “a patent license related to voice messaging.” Another one down, who knows how many to go.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Vonage, who has been hit up with a bevy of legal trouble in recent months, is officially seeking a review of the September 26th Verizon patent decision. Reportedly, the internet telephony outfit “filed a motion for a review by the original three-judge panel or the full panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.” According to Vonage Chief Legal Officer Sharon O’Leary, the move “represents the next logical step for Vonage in managing this litigation and continuing to move its business forward,” and she also stated that the firm would “continue to explore all legal options available to put the Verizon litigation to rest.”

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!