A big showdown is taking place at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an important standard-setting body, about rules for patents that cover basic building blocks of tech, such as chips or Wi-Fi protocols… Read more »
Lawyers say never to sign (or click on) anything without reading it first, but that rule typically goes out the window when it comes to complex-yet-boring end user licensing agreements (EULAs)… Read more »
Patent reform failed in Congress this year but a spec of hope has arrived in the form of a spate of court decisions in which courts are deciding that so-called inventions… Read more »
Microsoft has long used a stealthy strategy to coerce device makers into paying a license for the use of Android software. That may get harder, after the Chinese government published a… Read more »
The king of the patent trolls is raising new money to expand its trolling activities but this time Apple, which is tired of trolls, has declined to fund it. Read more »
A closer look at Google’s purchase and sale of Motorola shows the final price of the deal was around $4 billion for a big patent portfolio. That’s a reasonable price to… Read more »
Google rivals formed a group called Rockstar in 2011 to buy old patents from bankrupt Nortel. The group started by suing Android phone makers, but it now looks like it plans… Read more »
It’s estimated that Microsoft rakes in nearly $2 billion a year from Android device makers thanks to patent royalties. That figure could drop significantly going forward as a German court has… Read more »
A conspiracy theory is not enough to force corporations to pay up in a lawsuit. One law firm found this out the hard way in a failed case over a patent… Read more »
Newegg’s use of industry-standard online encryption techniques infringed on an obscure modem patent, a Texas jury found. However, the e-commerce outfit has promised to appeal, which has worked out well for… Read more »