intellectual property

Samsung is on the losing end of yet another legal decision in its ongoing patent war with Apple.

The Tokyo District Court today rejected Samsung's request for a ban on Apple devices in a dispute over data transmission patents.

The court found that Samsung hadn't "sincerely" negotiated with Apple over the patents in question and therefore had no right to seek damages, according to BusinessWeek.

A Samsung spokesman told CNET that the company is "disappointed by today's court decision, and following a thorough review of the ruling, it will take the measures necessary to … Read more

A couple of congressmen today reintroduced a bill that will likely command a standing ovation throughout Silicon Valley. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) are taking aim at so-called patent trolls with a proposal that would force them to pick up the tab for a defendant's legal costs if their patent lawsuit fails to prevail.

This is the second time around for the Saving High-tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes, or SHIELD Act. The co-sponsors first submitted the bill last August, but the provision withered on the political vine for a couple of reasons. The bill faced strong … Read more

A security group has taken aim at some of the biggest computer and software makers, claiming their products infringe on one or more of its patents.

Maz Encryption Technologies, a Delaware company made up of two former employees of Maz Technologies, filed suits last week against Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Lenovo, and Research In Motion (now BlackBerry).

In seven separate complaints, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Maz accuses the companies of infringing on one or more of its three patents covering encryption and user authentication technologies -- low level security found in … Read more

Fewer people are illegally downloading and sharing music, NPD Group said in a report today.

Among those surveyed for NPD's "Annual Music Study 2012," 40 percent who illegally downloaded music via peer-to-peer services in 2011 said they had stopped or decreased their illegal downloads in 2012.

Overall, the number of illegally downloaded songs from P2P services dropped by 26 percent in 2012 from 2011.

Part of that was due to an overall decline in the use of P2P services. At the 2005 peek of P2P file sharing networks, 33 million people used them. For 2012, that number … Read more

Carmen Ortiz, the embattled U.S. attorney who charged the late activist Aaron Swartz with multiple felonies, has responded to critics by saying complaints about any prosecutorial overzealousness are "inaccurate" and "unfair."

Ortiz, 57, said in a radio interview that a wave of criticism -- which includes a congressional investigation, a court Web site hack, and a petition demanding her removal from office -- is off-base and uninformed.

"I have heard some of the claims in terms of being overzealous, or lack of supervision" of prosecutors in the office, Ortiz, who was appointed by … Read more

A petition asking President Obama to oppose a new rule restricting cell phone owners from unlocking their devices has passed the 100,000 mark, meaning the White House is now obliged to respond.

The petition, which passed the threshold last night and now stands at more than 102,000 signatures, protests a regulation from the Library of Congress that prohibits unlocking phones without the carrier's permission -- even when a customer's contract with the carrier has expired.

"I think it's terrific," said Derek Khanna, a Yale visiting fellow who was previously a Republican Hill staffer … Read more

The White House warned today of the threat posed by WikiLeaks, LulzSec, and other "hacktivist" groups that have the ability to target U.S. companies and expropriate confidential data.

A new administration-wide strategy (PDF) disclosed at a high-profile event in Washington that included Attorney General Eric Holder says the theft of trade secrets is on the rise and predicts such theft will undermine U.S. national security unless halted.

It's a "steadily increasing threat to America's economy and national security interests," Holder said at the event, which also featured officials from the State Department … Read more

The most remarkable aspect of a new and deeply troubling report about network intrusions originating in China is how commonplace they've become. They're no longer a rare occurrence: A single Shanghai-based hacking organization has reportedly compromised at least 141 companies across 20 industries.

Those figures come from a new report from security firm Mandiant, which revealed the global accomplishments of a group of professional hackers dubbed APT1. Mandiant has assembled convincing evidence that APT1 is actually part of People's Liberation Army Unit 61398, an organization so far uninterested in defacing or deleting data from U.S.-based … Read more

Patent reforms passed last year don't go far enough to fully protect entrepreneurs from software patent holders who try to exploit them, President Barack Obama said today in his fourth annual appearance on YouTube following the State of the Union address.

"We passed some legislation last year, but it hasn't captured all the problems," Obama said during the Google+ Hangout, hosted on YouTube, in response to a question about what the government was doing to promote innovation -- and protect against what the questioner called "patent trolls."

"The folks that you're talking … Read more