patents

Given all the interest around One Laptop Per Child's "Give One Get One" program, I've been wondering just where all those laptops that are being donated are actually going.

For those who have been in the dark, the organization is trying to boost its low-cost laptop program through a promotion in which people in the U.S. can pay $399 to donate one of the rugged Linux laptops and also get one for themselves. The program's terms and conditions say little, other than that it will go to a child in a country on the … Read more

It's unclear where Lagos Analysis Corp. (LANCOR) expects the One Laptop Per Child project to come up with the money, but it has sued OLPC, anyway, for patent infringement. To make matters more complicated, the suit was brought in the Nigerian-owned company's backyard in Lagos, Nigeria. I'm sure the court will have no bias whatsoever....

LANCOR is seeking big money damages because, um, it has lost millions selling $100 PCs to developing nations (???):

The patent infringement lawsuit was filed on November 22nd, 2007 as a result of OLPC's [alleged] willful infringement of LANCOR's Nigeria Registered Design Patent # RD8489 and illegal reverse engineering of its keyboard driver source codes for use in the XO Laptops.… Read more

Apple has agreed to a $10 million settlement with Burst.com over patents related to delivering video over the Internet.

Burst sued Apple in April of last year claiming that the iPod, iTunes, and QuickTime products all used technology patented by Burst without a license. Burst's software enables something they call "Faster-Than-Real-Time" video, which sounds like it would be hard to watch, but it really represents the technology that allows you to download a 30-minute TV show in less than 30 minutes.

Microsoft paid Burst $60 million in 2005 for a license to the same patents. With … Read more

Nokia will have touch-screen mobile phones in the future--that much we know from its announcement recently about S60 (Symbian Series60) handsets supporting touch-sensitive displays. What is less known, however, is that the Finnish giant had filed patent documents for such phones dating back to May 2006.

In the document discovered by Unwired View on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office site, Nokia envisioned a device with two screens to display different kinds of information depending on the angle at which the clamshell is opened. Control of the device is possible using either the buttons or the display.

(Source: Crave Asia) … Read more

I failed to see this last week, but Acacia Research, the patent troll that recently went after Red Hat and Novell, got its first day in court with a Texas jury and lost. Big time. It was seeking $900 million in damages, as paidContent notes, and instead got 35 percent of its stock price chopped.

I weep for Acacia. OK. Maybe not. Looking at this stock chart, I will admit that a smile has played across my face:… Read more

Paul McDougall at InformationWeek may be reading too much into Microsoft's recent patent deal with Kyocera, but he does ask an interesting question. Does the agreement reveal Microsoft's patent position, at least as it relates to embedded Linux? (Or does it simply reveal that Japanese companies would rather settle with Microsoft than stand up for themselves, since they seem to be falling like flies before Microsoft's patent FUD?)

McDougall writes:

Under the deal, Microsoft gets to add patented Kyocera Mita technology to its Windows and Office products.

What does Kyocera get? The right to use patented Microsoft technology in its printers, copiers and "certain Linux-based embedded devices."… Read more

Microsoft said late Tuesday that it has signed a patent-swap deal with Kyocera Mita, the latest in a string of such announcements. Like many of those arrangements, Kyocera is getting protection for its use of Linux in various products.

Microsoft is also getting the right to use Kyocera Mita's patents in products like Windows and Office. The two companies did not announce the financial terms for the deal.

Other recent deals by Microsoft include agreements with TurboLinux, Linspire, Xandros, Samsung, LG, and Fuji Xerox.

In two consecutive days, The Wall Street Journal presented two different answers. The first is not surprising: Intellectual Ventures, the brainchild of ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. It's now out "to raise as much as $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from universities in Asia." I know I will sleep so much more comfortably knowing that IVL will be out plundering Asia so that it can turn around and plunder the rest of the planet.

The second might surprise you: the University of California. The University of California may be especially pernicious because it can sue for patent infringement but has sovereign immunity:… Read more

Northeastern University has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, claiming the database architecture that Google uses to feed up search results has been misappropriated, according to The Boston Globe.

The lawsuit claims the technology was developed and patented by a company called Jarg in Waltham, Mass., that was co-founded by Northeastern professor Kenneth Baclawski. The patent, owned by the university and licensed to Baclawski, covers a method for sectioning database queries into different portions that are each processed by a different computer.

The lawsuit was filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of … Read more