PCFormat Forum Archive

Google subsidiary Motorola Mobility has dropped a complaint of patent infringement against Apple without explanation.

In a brief filing with the International Trade Commission made on Monday, Motorola Mobility said it was dropping without prejudice a complaint that Apple had infringed on seven Motorola patents.

Apple has lost their legal claim to the iPhone name in Mexico

Apple may have solved their trademark problems in China, but it appears they may have a bigger problem on its hands south of the U.S. border, as a court in Mexico City has denied an injunction that would have allowed Apple to continue to sell under the iPhone brand because it violates the trademarks of iFone, a Mexican telecommunications company. The ruling could have a major impact on Apple’s phone sales in Mexico, as well as affecting the marketing and sales plans of several wireless service providers in the country, some of which were gearing up to offer the iPhone 5 to customers this weekend.

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Apple Hides Rewritten Court-Ordered Samsung Apology Behind Sneaky UK Homepage Code
Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Legal, News

Remember when you were in grade school, and your parent or teacher told you to apologize to the other kid? And you'd reply, "I'm sorry that Johnny has a big stupid face and he made me want to punch it"? Apple's been doing the same thing, except in this case the kids are billion-dollar international companies. With big stupid faces.

By now you've probably seen Apple's original apology to Samsung, ordered by the UK court to punish the company's assertion that Samsung wholly copied the iPad design. And you've seen the rewritten apology that the court forced Apple to post, after finding the original (which included statements that US and German courts found otherwise) somewhat lacking. It turns out that Apple's desire to skirt around the ruling of the UK court knows no bounds, or at least, no bounds on your computer monitor. Reddit user Dismiss discovered that the footer on Apple's United Kingdom page, which holds the mandated link to the apology, has been moved to just below the viewing area.It doesn't matter what your native desktop resolution is: even on a 2560x1600 display (like the new Macbook Pro with Retina Display!) the footer is below the initial viewing area. You'll never see it unless you scroll down. Apple's home page in the US, sans apology, is unaffected. While the judge in Apple's UK case didn't take kindly to the passive aggressive first draft ending in "Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad," it's unlikely that they'll order Apple to remove the revised code. To comply with the ruling, Apple must keep the notice on its homepage until December 14th.

Tribble wrote:So sometimes the courts do vote against Apple - interesting....

news.cnet.com wrote:Time is money: Apple pays $21M for clock design, says report

Quality Swiss-made timepieces don't come cheap. Just ask Apple.
The company shelled out a $21 million "lump sum" to license a clock-face design from the Swiss Federal Railway service, French news agency AFP reported, citing a Swiss paper.
In September, the railway service, also known as SBB, objected to the clock-face design in iOS 6, saying it too closely resembled a trademarked design created in 1944 by SBB employee Hans Hilfiker and used in train stations throughout Switzerland.
Hilfiker's design has been honored by both the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the London Design Museum and has become a symbol of Swiss punctuality, according to the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs' swissworld site. It's also licensed to Mondaine, a Swiss watch manufacturer.
SBB reached a licensing agreement with Apple last month, but at the time, an SBB representative said the amount of the licensing fee and other details of the deal would remain confidential.

Tribble wrote:You are joking! They are little lines on a white circle. Except for the red dot - there is nothing unique in the design.

Apple found to infringe MobileMedia patents in US

It took the jury just four hours of deliberation to find that the iPhone 5 was in violation of three of the patents held by MobileMedia.

The patents in question, which had been whittled down from 14 initially contested by MobileMedia, are 6070068 – "incoming/current call processing", 6253075 – "incoming call rejection", and 6427078 – "image capture/transfer." The patents were filed between 1994-1998, when these technologies were first introduced, and originally belonged to Sony and Nokia.

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Sometimes, a patent grant is less about the technology itself than what it could mean for others. Case in point: a newly granted Apple patent for a "mini-SIM connector." The design complements earlier work and represents a straightforward approach to a SIM slot that prevents damage from inserting the card the wrong way and ejects the card through a plunger system. By securing the patent, however, Apple gains a bargaining chip in phone technology disputes, especially for SIM-related tussles; companies are less likely to start a fight if Apple can return fire. The claim doesn't give Apple a lock on subscriber modules by any means, but it could lead to other adopters treading carefully.

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DailyFlux wrote:What most will know as the “pinch-to-zoom” patent. Well that major invention that Apple laid claim to is now officially invalidated.

Attempts to ban Apple devices could see Samsung fined $15 billion

The European Commission has made it clear that it's none too happy with Samsung over the company's attempts to get Apple devices including the iPhone and iPad banned there. The Guardian reports that the commission is claiming Samsung tried to use so-called standard-essential patents to request the bans, a practice that could see the company fined up to 10 percent of its 2011 revenue, or about $15 billion.

Standard-essential patents are ones that a company agrees to license to any competitor, and if the two companies can't come to an agreement on a fair and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing fee, one will be determined by a court. In this case, the patents cover 3G technology. Apple has attempted to license them but hasn't been able to agree on a price with Samsung.

Perhaps in anticipation of the European Commission's move, Samsung withdrew its request to have the iPhone and iPad banned in Europe earlier this month. In a statement, it cited a willingness to "protect consumer choice" and "compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court" as its motivation. The company is still seeking similar bans in other countries including the US, however. It must now respond to the commission, which will then decide if a fine will be levied.

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Apple applies for iOS 'Notification Center' patent years after Google's 'Notification Bar'

A filing published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday reveals that Apple is looking to patent the iOS Notification Center, a feature similar to Google's Notification Bar which allows mobile device users to keep tabs on a multitude of apps from a central hub.

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New country, same accusation: Russian railway targets Apple over trademark
The Swiss railway won a settlement from Apple, but will the Russian railway?

The Russian Railways may be trying to model itself after the Swiss Railway—at least when it comes to extracting money from Apple. The organization (which goes by RZD in Russian) is suing Apple for allegedly infringing on its registered trademark, though it's still unclear exactly where Apple is making use of it. RZD's complaint only states that the "online Apple Store" makes use of its trademark, number 341333, and it wants 2 million rubles (about $65,000) for the infringement.


The Russian Railways suit sounds just like a Swiss railway suit filed in September of 2012. At that time, Apple had just released iOS 6 and added a new Clock app to the iPad—the icon mirrored the trademarked clock designs used in the Swiss Federal Railway (SBB) stations throughout Switzerland. Apple was (relatively) quick to reach a settlement, however; in October the company agreed to pay an unnamed amount of money to the SBB in exchange for continued use of the clock icon.The case was seen as a victory for the little guy, and the RZD may see itself as being in the same position as the SBB.

But the SBB case was different because Apple actually appropriated the Swiss trademark in its own app. The most likely explanation for the RDZ's lawsuit is that there are third-party apps in the App Store that make use of its logo, as TechCrunch highlighted. (This would also make the most sense as it relates to the RZD's Google-translated statement about the online Apple Store.) But the RZD doesn't offer specifics on why it chose to sue Apple—as opposed to the developer(s) behind the infringing apps—so there may be more to the story than we're seeing at the moment.

The Register wrote:The US Patent and Trademark office last week granted Apple's application to trademark a retail store featuring computers.