Technology, Patent Infringement | featured news

Yahoo returned legal fire against Facebook in the companies' ongoing patent dispute, calling Facebook's recent countersuit slapdash and asserting two new patents against its younger peer.

Facebook said Tuesday that it has filed a countersuit against Yahoo, claiming that Yahoo violates Facebook patents that relate to photo-sharing, the news feed, tagging digital media and other Web elements that build in social features in Web sites.

Facebook has purchased hundreds of IBM patents in a bid to bolster its intellectual-property standing as it squares off against Yahoo in a high-profile infringement lawsuit.

Yahoo Inc sued Facebook Inc on Monday over 10 patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the Web, according to a copy of the lawsuit.

Taiwanese handset maker HTC Corp narrowly lost a patent battle with Apple Inc on Wednesday, as the International Trade Commission found that HTC had infringed on one of Apple's patents.

Samsung filed a countersuit against Apple in Australia, alleging iPhone smartphones and the iPad 2 violate multiple wireless-technology patents it holds.

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC fires a fresh salvo in its ongoing war with Apple over patent infringement.

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.