Much like spammers, Satanists and mimes, patent trolls are one of the rare groups around that Americans of all political stripes can unite in opposing. But although the White House on Tuesday announced some executive orders and proposed some legislative fixes to help end the flurry of lawsuits filed by patent holding firms, Quartz’s Christopher Mims thinks that such proposals are laughably inadequate and don’t go nearly far enough in addressing the real problems with the United States patent system. More →
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Tuesday issued a limited ban and cease & desist order on Apple products for infringing upon Samsung’s technology. The ruling concerns the AT&T versions of the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. Samsung had claimed that Apple violated several of its patents, however the ITC only found the company infringed upon one concerning encoding and decoding cellular data. The order will be sent to President Barack Obama, who will have 60 days to veto the ruling before it goes into effect. Apple will also have the opportunity to appeal the ruling in federal court.
It is going to become more difficult for patent-holding firms, more commonly known as patent trolls, to harass American companies. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Barack Obama will soon announce new laws for patenting technology in the United States. The president is expected to announce five executive actions that will look to end costly lawsuits brought on by patent trolls and propose seven legislative changes to be examined by Congress. More →
Good news for French Internet users: Illegally downloading the new Daft Punk album will no longer get your Internet service cut off. Ars Technica reports that the French government has decided to do away with a provision of an anti-piracy law that allowed regulators to cut off Internet service for users who have repeatedly ignored warnings against pirating copyrighted content. Ars notes that although the government never actually cut off any alleged pirates’ Internet services, it simply didn’t think that cutting off someone’s web access should even be a viable option. Fleur Pellerin, France’s digital minister, said that “it’s not possible to cut off someone’s Internet access” because “it’s like cutting off someone’s water.”
Mega founder Kim Dotcom has been scoring one victory after another over his would-be prosecutors over the past year and now he’s poised to land his biggest triumph yet. BBC News reports that Dotcom “has won access to evidence seized during raids on the file storage service” after New Zealand’s high court ruled that the warrants used to seize the evidence were unlawful. Dotcom wasted no time crowing about his latest win on Twitter and made a “victory” checklist in which he checked off the goal of getting his data back from law enforcement officials. The only item left unchecked on Dotcom’s list is getting former Megaupload users’ data back, which Dotcom has repeatedly said is one of his most important goals.
Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday ruled that Google must comply with the FBI’s warrantless request for private information. Google had previously refused to give the agency access to personal data such as the search history of its users, claiming such demands were illegal without a warrant. The judge rejected Google’s bid to modify or dismiss 19 “National Security Letters” it received from the FBI asking for confidential data, CNET reported. National Security Letters allow FBI officials to secretly request phone and Internet companies to disclose a user’s name, address, length of service and other information to the agency without requiring approval from a judge. The FBI issued nearly 200,000 National Security Letters between 2003 to 2006, 97% of which contained a mandatory gag order.
The U.S. International Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that it will take a second look at two recent rulings between Samsung and Apple, Reuters reported. The full panel will review an earlier decision that found Samsung had infringed upon Apple’s technology relating to selecting text, and a second ruling that found the company did not infringe on Apple’s patent for detecting microphones. The ITC has the power to ban imported goods from entering the United States. Apple’s complaint concerns older Galaxy devices such as the Galaxy Nexus. The panel is expected to make a final ruling on August 1st.
Google is once again said to be at the center of an antitrust investigation over its business practices. According to a report from Bloomberg, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether Google is using its dominance in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition. The agency had previously investigated the company over its search practices and use of Motorola’s patents. The latest probe will seek to determine if Google is violating antitrust laws by using its position in the $17.7 billion U.S. display-advertising market to force companies to use more of its other services.
Samsung is still trying to expand its patent portfolio as a way to combat intellectual property lawsuits filed by Apple, and the company has now gone so far as to start its own patent trading and development firm in the United States. Korea Times reports that Samsung last week plunked down $25 million to launch Intellectual Keystone Technology, a firm based in Washington, DC that will focus entirely on acquiring and developing patents. Unnamed sources tell Korea Times that Samsung is most interested in acquiring patents related to LCD and OLED displays that the company uses in smartphones, tablets and televisions. One Korea Times source says that Samsung is “eager” to buy display-related patents to maximize its “indisputable leverage” in the display manufacturing business.
A prominent anti-piracy commission, whose members include former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, has released a new report making the case that copyright holders should start deploying software capable of locking down the computers of alleged pirates. The new report from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property says that copyright holders should be allowed to take more assertive action against intellectual property thieves, including developing software that will ”allow only authorized users to open files containing valuable information” and will potentially lock down any unauthorized computer that tries to access the file. More →
The European Commission is reportedly investigating whether Apple is using “anti-competitive iPhone sales tactics and technical restrictions” to edge out rivals in the European market, according the Financial Times. The probe is said to be focused on Apple’s distribution terms, which may prevent rival smartphone vendors like Samsung from securing a better sales deal. The investigation is the result of an influx of private complaints from mobile operators, however it is still in its preliminary stages. More →
Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Apple CEO Tim Cook may be rivals but they both agree that government officials need to look at themselves in the mirror more when they decry the low tax rates paid by major tech companies. Per BBC News, Schmidt this week said that Google paid all the taxes it was legally required to pay in the United Kingdom and said that governments should change the laws if they want companies to pay more. More →
