Apple “Slide to Unlock” patent image

In 2007 at the MacWorld Expo, former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs took to the stage to unveil the iPhone for the first time, and during that unveiling the Slide to Unlock gesture on the iPhone was first shown to the world.

At the time, Jobs touted the feature as a seamless and elegant fix to an otherwise common annoyance: unknowingly pressing buttons on your phone while it is tucked away in your pocket.

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The world’s most popular online video teleconferencing company, Skype, has been served with a new patent infringement lawsuit by Gradient Enterprises, alleging the way Skype has setup its network infrastructure infringes on patents it holds.

Court documents filed by Gradient Enterprises on December 21, 2010 in a New York district court cite U.S. patent number 7,669,207, a patent that relates to how information systems detect, report, and respond to network node-level events.

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The France-based digital security firm, Gemalto Corp, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Samsung, High Tech Computer (HTC) Corporation, and Motorola, in a U.S. District Court in Texas, in a case relating to alleged patent infringement with Google’s mobile operating system, Google Android.

The patents in question relate to the Google Dalvik virtual machine, a technology that converts and executes Java apps on its Android operating system.

The virtual machine firstly converts .class Java apps to Dalvik Executable files and then executes the files to run the apps more efficiently on memory sensitive devices such as smartphones.

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NTP Corporation today announced it has launched new lawsuits against numerous technology firms for alleged patent infringement related to eight patents held by the company in wireless email delivery.

NTP has filed suit against LG Electronics, Microsoft, Motorola, Apple, Google, High Tech Computer (HTC) Corporation in a U.S. District Court in Virginia.

NTP has already successfully sued firms for infringements on the same patents it is filing suit for today.

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Microsoft Corporation today confirmed the company would settle pending patent litigation relating to virtual private network (VPN) technology owned by VirnetX Inc. to the tune of $200-million.

The suit alleged Microsoft was using the patented technology in various products, including Microsoft’s flagship operating system Windows XP, among other products like Microsoft servers.

The suit was initially brought against the company in 2007 in a Texas court.

Under the agreement, Microsoft will gain non-exclusive license to use the technology, along with a payment of $200-million.

Microsoft vice president Tom Burt said today in a statement, “We are pleased to work with VirnetX to bring these cases to a successful resolution through this settlement,”

The Microsoft stock (NASDAQ:MSFT) is trading at par from its opening price of $28.93 as at 3:49pm, moments before the closing bell for today’s trading session.

The VirnetX (AMEX:VHC) stock opened up at $7 per share, but trended down to $6.29 per share (up 2.61-percent) ten minutes before the closing bell.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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