Macgasm

Kodak’s hopes to get Apple and RIM on the ropes with some patent infringement claims have been smashasized into little pieces by ITC judge Thomas Pender, who essentially told Kodak to cram it. The once-upon-a-time giant of the photography world, which for two years has been trying to bring patent infringement claims against the two tech companies, filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Generally regarded by pundits as a “Hail Mary” attempt to scrape some money together, Kodak was seeking $1B for damages, but Pender ruled the patent that was the basis of their claim to be invalid. The New York Times has a little info on the patent in question:

Interestingly, Pender said the particular aspect of the patent that was pivotal to this case was “covered an obvious variation of earlier inventions,” and that, if it were actually valid, BlackBerry devices and the Apple iPhone 3G would infringe it, while the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 wouldn’t (presumably, this would also cover the 4S).

Source: New York Times

Apple and Samsung’s long-standing court-clogging feuds over patent technology and other tiresome issues may be taking a turn as they soon meet with legal mediation to get some of this crap worked out… or at least simmer it down a bit. Both Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung’s Choi Gee-sung have been instructed by a federal judge to move their disputes to mediation. And when the judge said “Tim Cook and Choi Gee-Sung”, he didn’t mean their subordinates and lawyers. He meant the two CEOs. Getting the head potatoes into court to talk face to face seems to be a new approach in the courts for companies that can’t make any headway with their problems otherwise. According to Reuters, it’s sort of a legal version of therapy:

Apple has accused Samsung of “slavishly” ripping off the iPhone and iOS, and Samsung has accused Apple in return of multiple patent violations. It’s not uncommon in this day and age for tech companies to be at each other’s throats over patents, but Apple and Samsung have provided a rather fearsome Goliath vs Goliath example of how intractable those battles can be. It would be a nice precedent to set if this mediation broke through the logjam and took these court cases out of the headlines for a while.

Source: Reuters

Via: The Loop

For those of you up at the bell this morning, anxiously awaiting Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) to start trading, you were sorely disappointed. As CNN Money documented last night, most recent Nasdaq IPOs are allowed to set their own start times, as long as it’s done long before the closing bell chimes. The trend has been for these stocks to start trading at just before 11am EST.

Lucky you.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook was just sued by its users in a class-action case this morning, claiming that the company “invaded their privacy by tracking their Internet usage”. The case, which was filed in Federal Court in San Jose, California, is looking for damages of $15 billion dollars, or about $10,000 per user.

Now aren’t you glad you didn’t get a chance to jump the gun and buy any stock? Personally, I feel like Facebook stock would be a crapshoot, and not something worth investing in anyway. Every time a legal issue like this crops up (and how many have their been?), or they make a change to how they display their information, I feel like the stock will plummet. Of course, I’m not a market analyst, just an opinionated prat, so take what I say at face value.

HTC seems to be having a little trouble with getting their One X and EVO 4G LTE into the U.S.A. due to checks for compliance with an injunction from the International Trade Commission. The Taiwan phone maker has been subject to an import ban because of patent infringement on a technology called “data detectors”, which allows the phone to figure out what’s a phone number, what’s an email address, etc. The patent belongs to Apple and, according to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, is of  ”medium value” and HTC would be at a complete disadvantage without it. Here’s a bit from AppleInsider to lend a little more detail:

HTC says that things should be just fine (of course) and released a statement saying: “We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval.”

Source: AppleInsider

Apple’s back in court (they should probably just set up a tent in the lobby), but this time it’s not to fight off Samsung’s copyist antics. Nope, this time it’s because consumers are getting tired of Siri not performing up to their expectations.

A grouping of lawsuits are currently seeking class action status in California. The lawsuits allege that the “iPhone 4S commercials and company statements about the phone were false and misleading. Siri, they say, is brilliant on TV, but she’s dim in reality” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Can’t really complain there, but Apple’s certainly right when they point out that the software application is in beta currently, and it’s far from being finished.

How did Apple’s legal team respond in court? Oh, it’s a doozy:

If you didn’t read the quote, let me paraphrase it for you. Apple’s legal team pretty much inadvertently called the plaintiffs a bunch of gold-digging douchebags. It’s hard not to agree with them. All the complainers could have returned their phones quite easily within the first 30 days after they purchased it, but they chose not to, didn’t they?

That said, Siri certainly doesn’t live up to my expectations either; however, I’m giving Apple the benefit of the doubt here because I live in Canada. That said, there’s a good ten minute stretch between my location and the freeway where Siri’s servers can not be accessed despite having decent signal strength. Again, this could be on the carriers, so I’m not going to complain too hard.

What do you think?

Apple may have rebranded their new iPad in an effort to placate Australian courts, but the courts are having none of it. Their original claim of the iPad as 4G ran afoul of Australian watchdogs, as 4G isn’t available in that country and, thus, telling Australian customers that they’re buying a 4G product is misleading. Apple capitulated by changing the wording so as to defer any misleading implications about what the product offered (calling it “iPad WiFi + Cellular”). Alas, that didn’t quite do the trick.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission is unimpressed, and told SmartHouse “Any move by Apple to cease using the descriptor of ’4G’ will mitigate against the ACCC’s concerns but will not deal with any past conduct.”   Slashgear has a bit more on the story:

The court case is set to start on June 4.

Source: Slashgear

The big boys have decided that it’s time to play nice on the playground. Both Apple and Samsung have dropped a large number of their infringment claims and narrowed their complaints quite substantially. But, it’s not all fun and games; the companies are still arguing about whether or not Samsung blatantly ripped off Apple. Go figure.

From FOSS Patents:

So there you have it. Both companies are starting to show a little maturity; however, they still pretty much hate each other. Apple still thinks Samsung ripped them off, which is hard to dispute, and Samsung is arguing that “Apple is ‘[unable] to compete in the marketplace’ and ‘instead seeking to compete through litigation,’” which is also pretty hilarious.

It’s nice to see some of the lawsuits dropped, but we’re still going to be hearing about this stuff for a while. A resolution isn’t exactly on the horizon, yet.

Google may have to face the music for a little stunt they pulled with Mobile Safari in which they hacked the cookie functionality to allow access to users’ web history and possibly personal information (Google doesn’t deny the former, but they do deny the latter). The FTC is now looking at laying a fine that could total tens of millions for violation of privacy, and it would be the first such fine they’ve laid for this particular sort of infraction.

There’s precious little on this story at the moment, but Bloomberg says FTC spokeswoman Claudia Bourne Farrell declined to comment, and Google spokesman Chris Gaither did as well.

It’s not so critically important that Google has to go stand in the corner. Merely being discovered to be doing something wrong is no deterrent for corporations, and it’s asking too much in this day and age to expect them to do the right thing purely for the purpose of being fair and just. It’s not enough to give Google a fine that they would never notice and would recoup within minutes any more than you would sue someone for the change they find under their sofa cushions. Google (and Facebook and Apple and Microsoft and any other corporation that does not take privacy seriously or acts in a subversive manner) should be fined a huge amount that will bruise their bankbooks. This is the only way corporations will learn where the limits are, and it’s the only way we’ll see disrespect of personal privacy come to an end.

Source: Bloomberg