infringement

Adding to its lawsuits against Apple in three other countries, Samsung has filed another against the iPhone and Mac maker, this time in the U.S.

The suit, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California San Jose division, and picked up by Bloomberg, accuses Apple of infringing on 10 of its patents. One of those patents includes the capability to use the Web while on a phone call, a feature Apple's touted in its advertisements for the GSM version of the iPhone.

The suit targets iPhones going all the way back to … Read more

Wishing Nintendo had its games available in Apple's App Store? Well, sometimes it does--even if they're buggy and, seemingly, completely without Nintendo's consent.

A game called Monino has suddenly appeared in the App Store. At 99 cents, it looks like it's pretty close to a clone of Mario, not-so-cleverly renamed. And, upon download, we discovered that even the Mario music had been ripped off, too (a badly recorded soundtrack that sounded like it was pulled directly from the old NES game).

Monino, as you can see, looks quite a bit like an Italian plumber of note. … Read more

Hit by a lawsuit from Apple last week, Samsung returned the favor yesterday, countersuing the iPhone and iPad maker over claims of patent infringement.

In its suit filed in Seoul Central District Court, Samsung claims that Apple is violating five different patents. Samsung has also filed a suit in Tokyo, citing two patent infringements, and another in Manheim, Germany, citing three instances of infringement.

A statement on the Samsung Web site says that the company is "responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and … Read more

A watchdog group that is also a longtime Google ally on copyright issues, has accused the company of being hypocritical when it recently removed a controversial music app from its app store.

Two weeks ago, CNET reported that Grooveshark, a music service that provides free access to songs by enabling users to post their own music to the site, had seen its app banned from the Android Market. It later came out that Google acted after receiving a complaint about Grooveshark from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade group for the four largest record companies. The search … Read more

TiVo has scored an important victory in its patent battle with EchoStar.

In a 7-5 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled (PDF) yesterday that EchoStar did, in fact, violate TiVo's "multimedia time warping system" patent that allows consumers to record one show, while watching another. The decision paves the way for TiVo to finally force EchoStar to disable any infringing devices in consumers' homes.

TiVo's battle with EchoStar started in 2004, when the DVR company first brought to light its belief that its patent was infringed. In 2006, a Texas … Read more

A lawsuit filed by H-W Technology earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Dallas Division claims Apple, Research In Motion, Google, and 29 other major technology companies are infringing on a patent it was granted in April 2009.

U.S. patent number 7,525,955, which had first been filed in March 2005, is described as an "Internet protocol (IP) phone with search and advertising capability."

In its filing from Wednesday, which was picked up by The Loop, H-W Technology says the patent deals with smartphones that can plug into … Read more

Lime Wire has settled a copyright lawsuit brought against it by several music publishers.

Yesterday's settlement puts to rest the copyright infringement suit filed in June against Lime Wire by more than 30 different music publishers, including the publishing arms of EMI Group, Sony, and Vivendi SA.

The former file-sharing site and its founder Mark Gorton were sued last year by a bevy of music publishers and record companies over charges that the LimeWire service enabled its users to illegally download copyrighted songs. That suit followed a previous court ruling in a case involving the Recording Industry Association of … Read more

WASHINGTON--Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said they want Google to appear before them to discuss upcoming antipiracy legislation as well as accusations that the search company profits from illegal file sharing.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the committee's chairman, invited a Google, Verizon, the Authors Guild and other companies with a stake in the online copyright fight to appear to give their views about a controversial bill Leahy is preparing to reintroduce in the Senate this year. The legislation would hand the government sweeping powers to take down alleged pirate sites and attempt to cut off their revenue sources. … Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Torrents and the founders of The Pirate Bay won't be anywhere near the marbled halls of the U.S. Capitol, but their influence will play a part during a hearing taking place here today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the committee's chairman, has called the hearing to garner testimony from some of the companies that could be asked to accept greater responsibility in the government's antipiracy efforts. Leahy is expected to reintroduce legislation into the Senate this year called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), and he's … Read more