When Two Tribes Go To War

We have seen the significant legal bills that publishing is now having to stomach and now more often than not are pitted against organisations with significant ‘war chests’ and deep pockets. However these pale into chump change when you look at the patent battles between the technology giants.

Samsung Galaxy family of smartphones and tablets are now a serious threat to Apple they are starting to gain a quiet momentum to dominate the market. Remember RIM (Blackberry), Nokia, Sony Ericson, HTC? They have all challenged but in the end failed to deliver that extra piece and take the market. Now Samsung is everywhere and you only have to look over your shoulder on the train, the underground to see Samsung devices and the company now expects to deliver operating profits of 8.1 trillion won ($7.3bn; £4.5bn), which is nearly double last year's figure and beating analyst expectations and sending Samsung shares 1.5% higher.

But with success comes the legal battles and costs and it is not all plain sailing for Samsung and the increasingly acrimonious patent battles with Apple continue and are escalating. Some are now starting to question the effectiveness or appropriateness on some patent laws especially in the US.

We have had the rejection of Apple claims in some countries and the notably victory on home turf in California. Samsung to be fair also has won patent cases on its home turf of South Korea. Samsung have now added Apple's latest handset to a US patent lawsuit claiming the iPhone 5 infringes eight of its technologies. These include features to synchronise photos, music and video files across several devices, and a method tocapture and send video over the internet. There are also ‘Frand patents’, which refer to technologies Samsung has an obligation to licence on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms as these are regarded as essential to data transmission standards. The other six disputed innovations are feature patents, and in theory Samsung could force Apple's products off the shelves if it does not remove the functions from the devices.

We have potential huge fines and moves to remove devices from the market on both sides of the fence and with Samsung owning some 30,000 US patents it is easy to see this is going to get very legal and costly for everyone. Judge Richard Posner who presided and subsequently threw out a case involving Motorola and Apple in June, has posted a blog calling for an overhaul of the law regarding software patents.

"Nowadays most software innovation is incremental, created by teams of software engineers at modest cost, and also ephemeral - most software innovations are quickly superseded." he wrote.

"Software innovation tends to be piecemeal - not entire devices, but components, so that a software device (a cellphone, a tablet, a laptop, etc) may have tens of thousands of separate components (bits of software code or bits of hardware), each one arguably patentable.”

He advocates that the 20-year-long patent protection that is sensible for pharmaceutical drugs do not apply to software.

Irrespective we now have a further twist in the notorious Californian $1bn patent dispute which Samsung lost on Apple’s home turf earlier this year. Samsung are now claiming that the jury foreman in the original trial did not fully declare his interests so engaging in a serious misconduct that prejudiced the verdict. It is claimed that jury foreman Velvin Hogan "failed to answer truthfully" on information about his past involvements in lawsuits, had a grievance against Seagate over a breach of contract he lost and led to his bankruptcy some six months later, (Samsung are Seagate’s largest shareholder), had a grievance against the law firm Quinn Emmanuel which s the same firm in both cases. Samsung have also raised points on interviews, given by Hogan where he admitted giving instructions to other members of the jury on matters of patent law based on his own experience – instructions that Samsung contest. It all sounds like a plot from a John Grisham novel. Judge Koh has now to rule on the various issues and motions related to the case.

‘When two tribes go to war, a point is all that you can score ‘ Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Technology Competitors?

Christmas is the time to think about others less fortunate than oneself.

Well one has to think that the spirit of Christmas doesn’t extend to the corporate world of telecoms as the battles between the giants continue unabated and patent disputes are more common that fights in the school yard and everyone tries to outsmart each other.

Today British Telecom filed a lawsuit in the state of Delaware claiming that six of its core patents have been infringed by the Google Maps, Google Music, location-based advertising and Android Market products on Android. The patents relate to location-based technology that underpins navigation and guidance information and personalised access to services and content. The suit could have serious financial implications on Google with even penalties being due on every Android set sold! HTC and Samsung have already yielded to patent claims by Microsoft against Android and are paying a per-handset fee for every one they make. If held up in the US the BT suit could then move to Europe.

With the number of lawsuits being fought by Google one wonders if they have any friends to sit around their Christmas table let alone send greetings to!

Meanwhile Apple have just scored won a narrow victory over HTC as a court ruled that the HTC copied Apple’s touch screen software for clicking on phone numbers in documents from the iPhone. But the world of patents is not simple and the U.S. international trade commission ruled in favour of HTC on another three claims by Apple that its software had been copied. These are mere skirmishes in the raging patent wars. It should be noted that originally Apple accused HTC of infringing 10 patents so they won more than they lost but with the US being their single biggest market any loss could prove damaging.

So is it all about smartphones?

Well in the 6 months we shall see Amazon Fire grow into a furnace and Apple yet again contradict itself and produce a smaller screen iPad. But the interesting one could be the introduction of a Google Nexus tablet. This would be interesting not just because it’s Google, but also given their Chairman Eric Schmidt’s employment history. We wonder if he took any ‘secrets with him’.

Google has already ‘contributed’ in the development of the Motorola Xoom, but like other Android tablets, it has not delivered the sales but Schmidt in the Christmas spirit is reported saying that ,’competition between Android smartphones and the iPhone will be “brutal”.’

Australia Lifts Samsung Ban

An Australia court has overturned an earlier ban on the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy tab in the country. Apple had previously won an injunction against Samsung in Austrailia and Germany preventing sales of the Galaxy 10.1 tab, accusing of it copying its touch-screen technology and infringing its patents. Samsung has sought a ban on sales of Apple's iPhone 4S in Australia, Japan, France and Italy.

Today’s news means Samsung will no longer be restricted in Australia. However, they will not be able to start selling the tablet immediately as Justice Lindsay Foster granted a stay on the order until Friday, 2 December, which allows Apple time to appeal in the High Court.

The case is part of a long legal battle which we have previously reported and one which is focused on the two market leaders slugging it out bout in the courts and the shops for a bigger slice of the smartphones and tablet market.

recent article: Apple and Samsung Lock Horns

See You In Court

Are the only real beneficiaries of the new technology age the lawyers?

We have seen the music industry take legal actions on copyright infringement sometimes at the sharing of a file. We read last week of the UK Publishers Association’s drive to go after the pirates and the inevitable legal bills. We have technology companies all apparently filing cases and counter claims against each other over patent infringements. We have seen no result but plenty of lawyers earn out of the Google Book Settlement.

Now as if to add fuel to the legal fires a judgement by a Texas jury against Google has found them guilty of infringing a patent related to the Linux kernel and fined them $5m. The money may be chump change for Google but the implications could be far reaching for open source devotes and Google’s server platforms and Android mobile platform.

The case was brought by Bedrock Computer Technologies who have also sued Yahoo, MySpace, Amazon, PayPal, Match.com and AOL. It could create a wave of patent toll booths and raises question on just how ‘open’ open systems and source code are?
Google states that it will continue to defend against such claims on the open source community. More lawyers fees and money into the legal world to defending old and questionable patent claims.

It has been estimated that in the last 14 months there have been 41 patent infringement suits levied at Google's Android platform and its rapidly growing developer ecosystem.

Just this week Apple said it was suing Samsung Electronics for allegedly copying the design of its iPad and iPhone. Samsung has in turn countersued Apple claiming the Iphone and Ipad infringe 10 of its patents.Microsoft have lodged a suit against the Nook e-reader and Nook Colour tablet. Oracle have claimed that Google's Android technology infringes on its Java patents.

Wading Through Patent Infringement Treacle

The world of technology appears knee deep in legal actions alleging infringed patented of technology.

In the latest case Apple is claiming HTC has infringed 20 patents owned by Apple used in their iPhone’s .interface and its underlying hardware and architecture. It’s no secret that HTC is probably poses one of Apple’s greatest threats today and are behind Google’s Nexus One handset and several others that use Google's Android operating system. Not that that has anything to do with the action filed with the US International Trade Commission and a district court in Delaware and where Apple is seeking a lasting injunction which would bar HTC from selling phones that use the disputed technology in the US.

Meanwhile in an action started at the end of last year, Apple is being sued by Nokia for 10 patent infringements within the iPhone. Apple response was to countersuing Nokia in a tit for tat legal action claiming infringement of 13 of its patents. In a second case launched at the beginning of this year Nokia claims that Apple infringed seven further patents in almost all of its products.

Not only are the lawyers busy fighting these cases but Kodak have asked the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to investigate the makers of the iPhone and Blackberry, over patent infringements on the technology used for previewing pictures. The technology in question has already scrutinised in court and in December last year , an ITC judge ruled that Samsung infringed upon the Kodak patent.

Finally, but probably not, Blackberry makers, Research in Motion won their defence of a patent case issued against them by Motorola after a UK Judge rejected the claims and also invalidated the Motorola patent. The decision will be a blow to Motorola who had claims with U.S. International Trade Commission seeking a ban on imports of BlackBerry smartphones into the USA.