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Fitbit succeeded in vanquishing its foe Jawbone when the latter shut down in July 2017. Now, Jawbone strikes back from beyond the grave. Federal prosecutors have secured an indictment against five former and one current Fitbit employees for illegally stealing trade secrets from Jawbone when they left the company for Fitbit.
Spigen accuses Andy Rubin's company Essential Products of trademark infringement, Essential responds with 🖕(ಠ_ಠ)🖕
Spigen accuses Andy Rubin's company Essential Products of trademark infringement, Essential responds with 🖕(ಠ_ಠ)🖕
Andy Rubin has only just announced his much-anticipated new smartphone, but his company may already be in legal hot water over the infringement of intellectual property. It's been brought to our attention that Spigen, the US case and accessory maker, already has a trademark for the term "Essential" and has written to Rubin's organization to contest its use. The letter firmly compels Rubin's fledgling company to "cease and desist from any and all uses of marks including the term "Essential"."
AMD is a pretty big name in the technology world. The semiconductor manufacturer, which rarely pursues legal action against others (at least publicly), has filed a patent infringement complaint with the U.S ITC against several other entities. It asserts that the offensive uses of those technologies negatively impacts AMD and its licensees.
Spotify still doesn't support streaming its music to Chromecast. That's bad. The third-party Spoticast app allows you to stream Spotify audio to Chromecast for free. That's good. Spoticast has been taken off the Play Store, allegedly for violating intellectual property rights and "app impersonation." That's bad. Want some frozen yogurt?
[Update: It's Back] 'GameStick' Is Now The Subject Of An Intellectual Property Dispute And Has Been Suspended From Kickstarter
'GameStick' Is Now The Subject Of An Intellectual Property Dispute And Has Been Suspended From Kickstarter.
Remember GameStick? Well, it was just removed from Kickstarter as a result of an intellectual property dispute. That in itself means Kickstarter is legally obligated to "remove the project from public view until the process is complete or the dispute is resolved," which has been done. That doesn't necessarily mean that the project has been cancelled just yet – GameStick has 30 days to resolve the issue. If it hasn't been sorted out by that time, Kickstarter will then have to cancel it, making GameStick nothing but a memory.
It seems Sprint just can't catch a break lately. After the LightSquared LTE fiasco (it seems eminently likely Sprint will be forking over $65 million and have to cancel the deal), this just seems a bit like kicking the company when it's already down. Comcast has filed suit in Pennsylvania against the nation's number-three carrier, and it's for patent infringement.
There has been a lot of interest of late in a patent filed (by Google) back in 2009 for what is obviously a rendition of Android's notification bar system. There are a number of pretty (well, as pretty as black and white gets) figures in the patent showing the notification bar we all know and love, and lots of language about notification systems and the like.
A recent Newsweek article has been making the rounds claiming, through an unnamed Apple "insider," that Apple has spent north of $100 million litigating its various grievances against HTC since late 2010. Verifying the accuracy of this number is pretty much impossible. But that doesn't really matter. It may just as well be $80 million, $150 million, or $300 million - the conclusion drawn would remain the same: Apple is spending quite a chunk of income on its growing lawsuit habit.
In a court filing last night demanding an early trial date for the ongoing Google v. Oracle patent litigation, Oracle claims that Android is now irreparably harming Java's market share in the mobile, TV, and tablet space. Oracle says that these are areas where Java "has traditionally been strong." News to us.
The blogosphere is currently aflutter with talk of the ITC (International Trade Commission) patent infringement decision in favor of Apple, and the resulting court order banning the import of infringing HTC devices starting April 19, 2012 (4 months from now). The ITC ruled that HTC infringed on two, relatively narrow claims in a patent related to "data tapping" that occurs at the system level in Android.
If you haven't heard, Germany has pretty much become the hotspot for smartphone and tablet patent litigation. Most recently, HTC has been hitting headlines in its ongoing battle against IPCom, an intellectual property firm. IPCom claims that HTC's smartphones violate a number of its patents in the realm of 3G GSM technology. HTC says that the last time it made a phone which might have violated those patents was in 2009, and that it has since developed a workaround which does not infringe on IPCom's patents.
OK, before I even get into this post, let me be clear: this is based on old news. However, it was news that no one seemed to pick up at the time, and when we discovered it, we thought it was quite interesting.
If you head over to FOSSPatents this morning, you'll find a rather lengthy article about Google's acquisition of Motorola that ends with the following conclusion:
After Apple decided to sue HTC last month in Delaware for patent infringement, it seems the handset maker is preparing to put on a little bit of high-profile litigation of its own.
This morning, as part of the ongoing Samsung v Apple patent litigation, the German court responsible for imposing a ban on Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in the EU has backpedaled, temporarily lifting the injunction enjoining Samsung from distributing its flagship tablet in the European Union.
In a decision with potentially far-reaching consequences, a German court handed down a preliminary injunction halting all distribution of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the European Union today, after a motion was filed by Apple for just such an order.
Android's latest indirect legal tussle to come to a head, a patent suit between HTC and Apple, was ruled on last week by the US ITC (Court of International Trade) - finding the Taiwanese manufacture liable for two counts of patent infringement. This news has spread like wildfire through every corner of the tech blog world. But is there really anything that's changed right now (or even in the near future) because of the outcome of this suit? Not really, no. Even the long-term, worst-case-scenario implications aren't exactly terrifying - and here's why.
You've all probably heard bits and pieces of news about a company called Lodsys in the last couple of weeks, (they've been "patent trolling" iOS app developers) even if you don't really keep up on all things fruit-related. If you're not familiar with the story, let me give you a quick rundown.
Last month, Google bid million for the patents of the now-defunct micro-cell phone company Modu, fueling speculation as to just what Google's plans would be with that intellectual property. Today, it was announced that the bidding process for the last remnants of Modu's legacy had ended, and Google was the winner (albeit by a narrow margin of $10,000), with a final offer of $4.9 million.
Recent iPhone Game of the Year (Pocket Gamers) winner Firemint, who won with their game Flight Control, issued a C&D Order to StickyCoding in regards to their game, Flying Aces.