intellectual property

Revealing a bit of previously hush-hush history that's relevant today, Sun Microsystems' former chief executive says that Apple CEO Steve Jobs threatened to sue Sun for infringing on its intellectual property in 2003 for a user interface design.

And that's not all: Microsoft's Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer also tried to get Sun to license Microsoft Office patents for use in OpenOffice, a move that would have made open-source distribution of the competing product impossible, Jonathan Schwartz said in a blog post Tuesday.

The anecdotes will be of interest at handset maker HTC, which Apple sued last week for patent infringement. … Read more

If you're a digital-video professional--the sort of person who records weddings, sells stock footage, or edits B-roll--chances are good you deal with the H.264 video encoding technology. But after reading software license agreements, you might well wonder if you have rights to do so.

A recent blog post by Harvard Ph.D. student Ben Schwartz, including the provocative phrase "Final Cut Pro Hobbyist," put the spotlight on license terms in Apple's video-editing software by questioning when professionals may use H.264 video. A similar "personal and non-commercial activity" license requirement appears in Adobe … Read more

One energy analyst is taking a pessimistic view of Bloom Energy's highly touted fuel cell, saying that there's "nothing that unique" about the technology.

On Wednesday, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based start-up introduced the Bloom Energy fuel cell, which is designed to be stacked into small blocks and housed in a unit about the size of a refrigerator and sold as an alternative to electricity from the grid. The company has begun selling 100kW units, costing between $700,000 and $800,000 each, and some of the "Bloom boxes" are already in use by companies … Read more

Microsoft has withdrawn a copyright complaint against the Cryptome site over its publication of internal Microsoft guidelines for how the software giant can provide user data to law enforcement.

Cryptome, a watchdog site that publishes sensitive corporate and government documents, was taken offline after Microsoft complained Wednesday about its publishing the document "Microsoft Global Criminal Compliance Handbook," also referred to as Microsoft's Surveillance Guide, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Microsoft on Thursday morning notified Network Solutions that it was withdrawing its complaint and the domain registrar put the Cryptome site back online, said Network Solutions spokeswoman … Read more

The Web site Cryptome, which publishes sensitive corporate and government files, was taken down briefly by its provider after Microsoft complained of copyright infringement over the publication of one of its documents.

Cryptome often posts documents detailing the surveillance activities that companies and government agencies perform on behalf of law enforcement officials. These documents, which Cryptome refers to as "lawful spying guides," explain what information companies reveal about its customers when requested by legal authorities. Many of these documents are specifically written for law enforcement officials to guide them on obtaining customer information from a company--what to ask … Read more

In the wake of Wednesday's star-studded, feel-good rollout of Bloom Energy's "Bloom box" server, the start-up now faces the gritty task of delivering products that are reliable and cheap.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Bloom Energy held a press event Wednesday morning detailing the Bloom box fuel cell, which is designed to be stacked into small blocks and housed in a unit about the size of a refrigerator. Luminaries in attendance included California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, legendary venture capitalist John Doerr, Google co-founder Larry Page, and top executives from heavyweight companies such as eBay, Wal-Mart, and FedEx.

The combination within the Bloom box of oxygen and fuel creates a chemical reaction, producing electricity. The box, which promises to deliver generous amounts of power in a small space and to change people's dependency on traditional power grids--all for less than $3,000 for a future home unit--is already in use at places such as Google, eBay, and Wal-Mart.

Probably the single most fundamental promise made by Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar at Wednesday's event was that by starting with a 25-watt fuel cell building block, products can be scaled up from 1kW "home" solutions to systems delivering hundreds of kilowatts for businesses or communities.

One fundamental challenge is making the ceramic tile reliable.

"It's extremely thin and operates at a wide range of temperatures. The big challenge is thermal stress," said Tobin Fisher, who co-founded mobile fuel cell company Ardica Technologies out of Stanford University. "All of these different components heat up and expand at different rates. Over time, they can crack as a result."

Generally, when a system like Bloom's is not working, it can result in a phenomenon called "gas short," quickly gaining in temperature and losing efficiency, according to Fisher.

Fisher believes companies like Bloom Energy stress-test the technology… Read more

Remember the Google Books settlement? After a storm of criticism over the initial draft, Google--and the author and publisher groups that initially sued the search giant--withdrew a proposed settlement hours before a scheduled hearing last fall, promising a significant revision.

That revision was announced on November 19. A final fairness hearing on the revised settlement (the Amended Settlement Agreement, or ASA) is scheduled for February 18.

A number of parties have objected to the revised settlement, most notably the U.S. Department of Justice, which filed a "statement of interest" (PDF) on February 4. The department still believes … Read more

eBay has lost another lawsuit filed against it by luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton Malletier.

The Paris District Court ruled Thursday that eBay was liable for harming the reputation of LVM's trademarks, company name, and domain name. LVM had sued eBay claiming that the site was using keywords that hurt the Louis Vuitton brand.

The Paris court has ordered eBay to pay damages of 200,000 euros ($273,176) and to cover LVM's legal fees to the tune of 30,000 euros. eBay will also be fined 1,000 euros for each future violation.

"Louis Vuitton welcomes … Read more

Like the iPhone, Apple stands to make a greater profit on the iPad when consumers choose models with more memory, according to an estimate released by iSuppli on Wednesday.

The $729 version of Apple's iPad is estimated to carry a bill of materials (BOM) and manufacturing cost of $287.15, making it the most profitable iPad model, according to iSuppli. The iPad is expected to go on sale as early as next month.

The firm did not have an iPad in hand when doing its analysis but based the virtual teardown on an in-house cost model that includes commodity components that are used across many devices.

Though the estimate does not account for non-hardware costs, as the price of different models increases, other costs will stay the same, according to Francis Sideco, an analyst at iSuppli. "Regardless of the configuration, software and licensing is going to stay the same. The only thing that's going to change are the hardware costs and primarily the memory," Sideco said in an interview.

That memory-based pricing scheme has become standard practice for Apple when pricing its iPhone and iPod, for example. For the iPad, the 32GB model will be the most profitable, costing only $29.50 more to produce than the 16GB versions, but the retail price gap is $100, iSuppli said. After the display, the NAND flash memory is expected to be the most expensive item. In the mid-range 3G model, the 32GB of NAND accounts for 21.4 percent of the total BOM, iSuppli said. … Read more