Oh The Nerve!

Apple appears to be deeply concerned about losing ownership of the iPad trademark in China and might be thinking about a Plan B. The company reportedly is eyeing the EPAD trademark which is currently being used by a Chinese vendor on their products.

As you already know, Apple has been busy for the past few months facing numerous lawsuits regarding their trademark names and patents. They are currently having a tough time with the legal battle against Proview over the iPad name. Earlier, Proview issued a press release which detailed about Apple’s spy games.

There is a big possibility that Apple might lose the name of their greatest device and appears to have started thinking about new names for it. According to a report on Computerworld, the tech giant has filed a complaint against EBox Digital Technology Product over their use of “EPAD”. EBox received a copy of the complaint, which was filed through China’s trademark office, last month.

EBox sells a line of laptop luggage cases under the EPAD name. Apple says that the brand name closely resembles their iPad, so EBox should give it up.

EBox, which applied for the EPAD trademark back in 2010, has this to say on the matter: “The iPad trademark is not Apple’s, so now they want to take ours. Apple has been a bully“. The company reportedly is not planning to use the name on any electronic devices.

[Image Source]

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Earlier, it was widely reported that Microsoft gets about $5 from sales of HTC Android phones. This sort of unexpected revenue stems from licensing deals that were offered to HTC from Microsoft’s IP protection departments. HTC wasn’t commenting much on this deal back in the day, but the deal is here.

The alternative approach to it, you guessed it right: no licensing deals and a continuing patent war. As Appleinsider points out,  Steve Jobs indicated before he died to biographer Walter Isaacson that he had no interest in licensing Apple’s patented technology to Android manufacturers. Jobs said he believed Android was a “stolen product,” and indicated he was “willing to go thermonuclear war” to stop it. Well, it remains to be seen how much “thermonuclear” this war has seen so far. But it’s global and it’s very expensive, that’s for sure.

Kevin Rivette, managing partner at intellectual property firm 3LP Advisors LLC, believes this all-out war approach could be detrimental to Apple shareholders, because it is prompting device makers to modify their infringing products and work around Apple’s intellectual property. Examples of such strategies deployed multiply recently: earlier this month, the U.S. International Trade Commission found that HTC was in violation of an Apple patent related to so called “Data Detectors”, but only a day later HTC said it was testing new devices that work around the Apple’s patent in question. As a result, the ITC’s ruling is not expected to have an immediate impact on either HTC or Apple. Problem could be solved, even if for the moment, or for just this particular case. Now, Samsung released a revised Galaxy Tab 10.1N that the German court recognized as significantly different than the original, but hotly disputed by Apple’s patent warriors.

Then, with this patent war being global, it means there are many different battlefield decisions which are not so clear-cut as Apple would like them to see. Think of Germany, Australia recently. Rivette thinks Apple should reach settlements in cases where it can’t win import restrictions against competing devices.

Today’s estimate of what Apple can gain from such settlement deals is about $10 of royalties per Android device. What will happen with this revenue tomorrow, when manufacturers will be actively cleaning their devices from last signs of disputed technologies is anybody’s guess.

On the other hand, Microsoft in its wars with Android is showing a more “balanced” approach:  it has agreements in place with Samsung, HTC, Acer and Viewsonic, while lawsuits against Motorola Mobility, Barnes & Noble and others continue. Should Apple take the Microsoft Way?

The post Can Apple Earn $10 From Every Android Device Sold? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It seems that we hear about a new lawsuit every day and it’s getting more and more confusing by the minute. Apple is suing HTC for over 20 different software patents. Kodak is suing Samsung for something about image storage and movie previews.

With so many lawsuits being handed in every which direction, how can you keep track of it all? Well, the very kind folks at InformationIsBeautiful.net were kind enough to put together this “simple” infographic that culls together as much data as they could from the Guardian and New York Times.

You can see that Nokia has suits against both Hitachi and Sharp over LCD price fixing. Sony Ericsson is suing Kodak over the handling of digital images. And Microsoft is suing Motorola about email contact patents. Confused as ever? Yeah, me too.

And do you know who wins at the end of the day? It’s not the consumer. It’s not the tech titan. It’s the lawyers. Just like the whole legal kerfuffle over Google Books and the scanning of copyright material.

VIA: Gadget Review
SOURCE: Information is Beautiful

The post Understanding all the technological lawsuits these days (Infographic) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

iPhone 4 with the much needed "bumper" case Photo: Flickr

Have you been in a car accident, injured? Perhaps your iPhone 4 antenna is not performing as it should? Call Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff now.  That seems to be the message from a Sacramento lawfirm who have put the word out to disgruntled iPhone owners in order to round up a class-action suit against Apple.

“If you recently purchased a new iPhone and have experienced poor reception quality, dropped calls and weak signals, we would like to hear from you,” reads a a message on the injury attorneys website.

The firm is “currently investigating potential problems with the release of iPhone 4.” This is after the companies most successful product launch in history, someone is always out there to take a piece of the pie.  According to some iPhone 4 owners, the device drops signal if the bottom left corner is covered by the palm of the hand – a situation most common when lefties are in control.

The antenna glitch is just one of the issues plagueing the new smartphone. Apple has been sued alongside AT&T in the past numerous times, most notably the easily scratched screen of previous iPhone devices, however, these new issues are severe enough to require some serious action by Apple.   The iPhone 4 went on sale last week and sold 1.7 million units thus far.

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