legal

Sharp will pay a total of $198.5 million to Dell and two other companies a part of an out-of-court settlement reached over the Japanese tech company's thin-film-transistor, or TFT business.

It's not clear from initial reports which companies are invovled or even what the suit pertained to. AT&T and Nokia both sued Toshiba a few years back and are likely the two unnamed companies paid in the settlement.

However, the news likely relates to last week's news that Toshiba, Samsung, LG, and Sharp colluded to fix prices of LCD panels.

Sharp said after "… Read more

Another day, another lawsuit out of China targeting one of Apple's products.

This time around, a Shanghai-based voice application developer, Zhizhen Network Technology, has reportedly sued Apple for allegedly infringing a patent it holds related to "a type of instant messaging chat bot system" it calls Xiaoi Bot. The company argues that the patent, which it filed for in August 2004 and was awarded in February 2006, is being violated by Apple's Siri.

Marbridge Daily, which was first to report on the story and obtained a copy of the suit, says that Zhizhen attempted to resolve the issue with Apple out of court in May. … Read more

HTC won a U.K. High Court case after a judge today ruled the Taiwanese smartphone maker has not infringed four of Apple's European-held patents.

Judge Christopher Floyd also said that three of the four patents were invalid, according to Bloomberg. 

The only patent that was ruled to be valid relates to Apple's photo-management software, but HTC did not infringe on it, according to the court.

The other three invalid patents relate to Apple's multitouch software, alphabet-changing software, and the iPhone and iPad's slide-to-unlock feature.

The same four patents are to be tested in … Read more

The European Union's Court of Justice has reportedly crushed Oracle's hope of stopping a company from reselling its used software.

The Luxembourg-based court today ruled in favor of German company UsedSoft, which sells used software licenses. The court said that once a software company sells "a copy of a computer program," its "exclusive right of distribution" is eliminated, paving the way for other companies to sell the used licenses, according to The Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of the ruling. The rule applies to both physical media and copies of the software … Read more

How much are your digital backups worth?

According to one one British Columbia man, copies of data from his two computers and an iPhone that were being stored on an Apple Time Capsule that went kaput, are worth $25,000.

That's the amount Perminder Tung, a resident of Surrey, B.C., seeks from Apple after the Time Capsule he was using ceased to function, taking his files with it.

In a filing (PDF) made against Apple in a Canadian small claims court earlier this week, and picked up by CBC News today, Tung accuses Apple of being in breach … Read more

Samsung has decided to withdraw a patent claim from its legal tussle with Apple before the U.S. International Trade Commission, according to a report.

The company on Friday filed a motion with the U.S. ITC requesting the removal of U.S. Patent No. 6,897,843, describing a "device and method for storing and reproducing digital audio data in a mobile terminal," from its case with Apple, FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller is reporting. According to Mueller, the withdrawal now leaves four patents at play in the hearing with Apple.

Apple and Samsung have been waging a … Read more

So much for the power of Motorola's patents.

Google, which spent $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola and its patents in a deal that closed Tuesday, has suffered a major legal defeat at the hands of Microsoft, which successfully argued to a German court that Motorola has violated a patent related to text messaging.

The ruling means Microsoft can enforce a ban on Android products in Germany. But more importantly, it could signal an end to at least one long-running dispute between Microsoft and Android players. In the increasingly popular game of technology legal warfare, the side that gets … Read more

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung met face-to-face over their patent disputes this week, but according to a new report, they couldn't seem to get along.

The Korea Times is reporting today, citing a Samsung "official," that the chief executives "could find no clear agreement through the talks," leaving the firms no other option but to battle it out in court.

Both Cook and Choi, as well as their general counsels, were ordered in April by Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to … Read more

Earlier this month, Apple accused its rival Samsung of destroying evidence in their patent-infringement case, according to a new report.

According to Network World, which claims to have obtained a "heavily redacted" motion Apple filed with Northern District Court of California on May 1, the iPhone maker is charging Samsung with the "spoilation of evidence." Apple claims Samsung destroyed "vast quantities of relevant evidence in blatant disregard of its duty to preserve all such evidence," according to the report.

The companies' patent-infringement battle in the California district court is one of the more heated … Read more