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Linux was a 'cancer' but Microsoft is now defending it IBM, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation have partnered with the Open Invention Network (OIN), a company formed to protect Linux from patent threats, to take on "Patent Assertion Entities", also known as patent trolls.Specifically, the group will help fund the Open Source Zone of Unified Patents, an organisation which provides legal services to deter "unsubstantiated or invalid patent assertions".The move had already been flagged at the Open Source Summit in Lyon last month, but the identity of the participating companies was not then known. OIN CEO Keith Bergelt spoke to...

Imagine the following scenario: You spend your life slaving away at building some ingenious new device in your garage. After years of painstaking work, testing, and sleepless nights, you finally produce your device, patent it, and take it to market. However, before you can take it to market, someone serves you with a lawsuit.

A federal appeals court has thrown out a jury verdict that had originally required Apple Inc to pay $533 million to Smartflash LLC, a technology developer and licenser that claimed Apple's iTunes software infringed its data storage patents. The trial judge vacated the large damages award a few months after a Texas federal jury imposed it in February 2015, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said on Wednesday the judge should have ruled Smartflash's patents invalid and set aside the verdict entirely. A unanimous three-judge appeals panel said Smartflash's patents were too "abstract" and did not...

For years, patent trolls have been the best evidence that pure evil exists. And like most evil entities, they are almost impossible to stop. Even a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision that was highly critical of patent trolls has done little to slow their slimy, reptilian-like existence. But a federal judge on Dec. 19 crafted a novel tactic to curb patent trolls when she slapped a half-million-dollar bill on the lawyers and said that they were personally responsible for paying it, not their client. This could truly be a game-changer.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday ruled that a 2011 law designed to make it easier to defeat new patent trolls were legal. The law had been challenged by a company attempting to patent something which had long been done by other companies. The case before the Supreme Court focused on a patent held by Cuozzo Speed Technologies LLC that claims an invention for alerting drivers when they are speeding. GPS technology company Garmin brought a challenge at the Patent Office, which invalidated the Cuozzo patent after concluding its claims weren’t innovative when viewed against other prior technologies. The ruling will be of particular benefit to...

Synopsis: The US Patent Office invalidated two of the three in suit patents on selling digital software online held by SmartFlash LLC. A third similar SmartFlash digital selling patent was invalidated in March in another case. The Patent Office judges held that the patents were for abstract concepts, just mere ideas, and should never have been granted patents in the first place. — Swordmaker link only due to copyright considerations

Samsung's got some new friends in its legal battle against Apple -- including farmers, African American small businesses and an electronics retailer. Legal experts, nonprofit organizations and technology companies have filed amicus or "friend of the court" briefs in support of Samsung, urging the US Supreme Court to consider the patent-infringement case. They want the nation's highest court to better define design patents and limit the damages that can be awarded. And they're using Apple v. Samsung as the case that hopefully gets the federal government to enact patent reforms, preventing so-called patent trolls from cashing in on intellectual property....

Apple came out unscathed from a legal battle involving digital rights management IP owned by ContentGuard, a subsidiary of non-practicing entity Pendrell Corp. that sued the iPhone maker for infringing on five patents. The jury handed down its decision in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on Friday, finding Apple not in infringement of five DRM-related patents owned by ContentGuard, reports Reuters. While not responsible for damages, Apple was not able to prove the patents-in-suit invalid. Apple was accused of illegally applying patented DRM technologies to its digital content distribution services, including music, movies and TV...

Here is a story of how $1,000 a plate Washington breakfast influenced the votes of several Conservative Members of Congress who serve on the House Judiciary, including Representative Steve King (IA-04), allowing Committee passage of H.R.9, the innovation killing Innovation Act. Over the past several years there have been a number of large corporations, many that have patents themselves, who have funded and managed a powerful Washington lobbying effort. The focus has ostensibly been on reforming the problem of patent litigation abuse, but the changes advocated would be to their favor at the expense of innovators, like universities, independent inventors...

Patent troll stories don’t usually have a happy ending but this might count: a troll tried to shake down a start-up for $250,000 but had to skulk away empty-handed thanks to the hard work of a group of students at Brooklyn Law School. As patent lawyer Eric Adler explains, California-based CarShield sought the students’ help after its connected-car business was targeted by a troll who goes by the name 911 Notify. The troll, which is nothing but a shell company, put CarShield in the same terrible dilemma that confronts every other target of patent trolls: it could either spend hundreds...

President Obama vetoes Samsung patent ban on iPhone 4 and select iPads Dante D'Orazio on August 3, 2013 The Obama administration has stepped in today to veto an import ban Samsung won from the International Trade Commission to prevent the iPhone 4 and some iPads from coming into the US. The move marks the first time since 1987 that a President has interfered with an ITC order. Such import bans, which effectively prohibit the sale of certain devices, have come under scrutiny from the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission as more companies are seeking the bans (instead of...

The Obama administration on Saturday vetoed a U.S. trade body's ban on the sale of some Apple AAPL +1.28%iPhones and iPads, a rare move that upends a legal victory for smartphone rival Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE +0.47% U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made the decision to veto the ban on the Apple devices, citing concerns about patent holders gaining "undue leverage." He said Samsung could continue to pursue its patent rights through the courts.

Summary: According to a new, comprehensive report by Lex Machina, more than half of all patent lawsuits in the US now come from patent trolls.Patent lawsuits are used as weapons in business wars between companies such as Oracle vs. Google and Apple vs. Samsung. Behind the intellectual property (IP) headlines, however, Lex Machina, a Silicon Valley startup, has found that patent troll lawsuits have increased from 24 percent of cases filed in 2007 to 56% in 2012. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a "patent troll uses patents as legal weapons, instead of actually creating any new products or coming...