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Early this morning, Apple filed a lawsuit against the Taiwanese phone maker High Tech Computer (HTC) Corporation, alleging the company in infringing on more than 20 Apple owned patents in its mobile phones.
The lawsuit was filed in a U.S. District Court in Delaware and with the U.S. International Trade Commission today.
HTC is the maker of about 85-percent of all Windows Mobile powered devices, and also the maker of Google’s latest Android powered phone, the Nexus One.
U.S. Patent No. 20090325603 - Apple GPS location sharing transmission
According to a new U.S. patent application by Apple Computers Inc., the company is preparing new location-aware technologies that would make using an iPhone (and probably the iPad) more efficient and social. According to this specific patent, location sharing will become a seamless process where users could effortlessly share their location directly from the call screen.
Users can already share their current location simply by finding their location in the Maps application, then sharing it via a few more additional taps. However, the current process requires somewhat too many taps and simply wouldn’t be as efficient as choosing to share your location from a single press while concurrently talking with your friend.
A Texas-based court has just ruled in favor of a Toronto-based company, i4i Corp., in a patent dispute with Microsoft Corp.
The judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular document processing software Word 2003 and 2007 versions in the U.S. after Microsoft was found willingly infringing on patents obtained by i4i in 1998.
The judge also ordered Microsoft to pay US $290 million in damages to i4i, and has given Microsoft 60 days to comply.
Waterloo-based Research In Motion (RIM) is looking to acquire Nortel’s CDMA and Long Term Evolution Access businesses, among other assets, for $1.1 billion.
Now, RIM is publicly accusing Nortel for intentionally blocking its acquisition bids mainly because RIM wants to buy additional Nortel assets.
Various Apple patent applications have been published today from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, indicating the Cupertino-based company is trying to win various patents including relating to facial recognition, voice, and messaging, among other areas.
The Facial Recognition patent application relates to technologies that determine if a computer user is passively working with the computer. Apple notes current computer systems cannot determine if a user is actively looking at the screen. For example, you could be reading a long article or simply doing something else when the operating system turns on the screen savor. With the new Apple technology, the software via the iSight camera would know a user is presently looking at the screen, preventing it from executing certain actions.
A Texas District Court found Apple Computers guilty of “willfully” violating three patent claims associated with predictive snooping of cache member that moves data between computer components including the processor and memory modules. Apple maintained the patent was invalid because of the obviousness of the involved processes. OPTi Inc. now earns most of its revenue from patent related royalties. Apple did not comment on the ruling.
A new Apple patent aims to give a user control over sounds found on web sites. A panel would sit at the top right corner of your browser, allowing you to entire mute the sounds coming from the current website you are on. This will allow you to mute unwanted sounds coming from certain websites. The feature will prove especially useful for flash-based websites where it is sometimes not as easy to find mute buttons. According to the patent, you will also be able o create profiles. The feature would be used on supported on many browsers and not just Safari.
Apple knows how hard it can be sometimes to use your iPhone when moving around, such as when jogging or bustling to your next appointment.
According to a new Apple U.S. patent filing, the company is developing technology that will help improve touch accuracy by making OS elements larger depending on motion-based activity.
The software will be able to detect “signatures of motion” and then change OS elements accordingly. For example, if you sitting at your desk, it is easy to scroll through your contact list, but the process becomes a bit cumbersome if your jogging with the smaller font and list. The new technology will detect motions and enlarge that list accordingly, as seen above from the patent filing.
Other elements of the OS will also change accordingly, including text, icons, among other elements.
This technology is still a while away, if it will ever materialize to begin with.
Update: U.S. Patent Office filing link.
According to a new patent filing, Apple seems to want to re-introduce its digital video answering machine with new features.
The app would let you record videos and send them via iChat to your friends who can view them later. The app would also let you auto-reply with your video to incoming callers if you changed your status to Away or Idle after a pre-specified time.
Going further this time, Apple explained in the filing that the videos could be uploaded on its servers, allowing the video to be displayed even when you are not logged into iChat.
Additionally, you would also be able to respond with your own video audio reply.
The concept was first introduced in Mac OS X 10.5 pre-release version in 2006 but never really materialized.
A jury reached a verdict today against Microsoft, ordering the software-giant to pay $388M to Uniloc for patent infringement. The patent is related to code that identifies unique IDs to identify legal users to help prevent unauthorized use. Microsoft said it was disappointed and plans to appeal.
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