Technology, Patents | featured news

Samsung's chairman has asked top management to strengthen its software capabilities as Samsung finds itself embroiled in an intensifying patent battle with Apple after Google announced its acquisition of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

To recap, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, sent a shot across the bow of Apple, Microsoft and Oracle, accusing them of participating in an “organized campaign” to take Google’s Android platform down through patent lawsuits.

The legal battle began in 2007 when i4i sued Microsoft. A federal jury awarded $290 million to i4i after finding that Microsoft, in 2003 and 2007 versions of Word, its word processing application, had infringed i4i's patent relating to text manipulation software.

We recently broke the story of a small search software outlet named Masterobjects taking on Amazon.com in a notable patent infringement lawsuit, later also taking Google to court. Now it's apparently Microsoft's turn to get sued by the company, and my guess is more will follow.

Intel Corp. said it entered into a new long-term patent licensing agreement with Nvidia Corp., agreeing to pay its smaller rival $1.5 billion over the next five years to resolve a patent dispute between the companies.

Microsoft accused Motorola of violating its patents with smartphones that use Google's Android operating system.

A firm run by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is suing Apple, Google and 9 other companies alleging they are violating patents developed at a Silicon Valley lab Mr. Allen financed more than a decade ago.

EBay Inc was sued for at least $3.8 billion on Tuesday by a Connecticut company that accused the online auctioneer and retailer of infringing six patents to develop lucrative payment systems such as PayPal.

The Apple-Nokia patent fight carries on, this time with Nokia extending its complaints to Apple's gadget du jour, the iPad. Nokia filed a lawsuit in a Wisconsin federal court on Friday ...

Facebook this week was awarded a patent pertaining to streaming "feed" technology -- more specifically, "dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network," complementing another patent filing that has been published but not yet approved.