Tag: court

Apple loses another court battle

Posted on August 29, 2014 by - News

novità-apple-2013A federal judge has rejected Apple’s attempt to block the sale of several older Samsung smartphones that copied auto-correction feature in the iPhone’s keyboard, the method to create links for email addresses and phone numbers appearing in text and the swiping gesture for unlocking the phone’s display screen.

While that particular trial, which was spun as a victory, is starting to make Apple look a little silly.  Firstly, in this case the jury awarded Apple only $119 million in damages well below the $2.2 billion in damages that Apple wanted.

And now Apple’s demand that US District Judge Lucy Koh issued an order that would have prevented future US sales of nine Samsung phone models that it claimed infringed on the iPhone technology has been rejected.

Koh said Apple had not adequately proven Samsung’s intellectual theft had hurt its sales or diminished its reputation for innovation. She noted that Apple had licensed some of the features that Samsung infringed upon to the makers of other smartphones that competed against the iPhone.

Samsung told the court the damages awarded to Apple amounted to a royalty payment for its past and future infringements on the patents at issue.

Apple had wanted to ban the US sale of these Samsung models: the Admire, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S II, Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S II Skyrocket, Galaxy S III, and Stratosphere.

 

Scanner troll kicked

Posted on August 15, 2014 by - News

kung-fuMPHJ Technology which sent out thousands of letters demanding $1,000 per worker from small businesses using basic scan-to-e-mail functions, has just received a kicking from a court.

The outfit claims to own several patents that cover those basic functions and has sent out more than 10,000 letters demanding payment.

It was the first patent troll ever to be sued by the government in which Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell accused MPHJ of making misleading statements in its demand letters.

The troll did not really bother to check that the targeted businesses were actually infringing its patents and sent letters to two Vermont nonprofits that help disabled residents and their caregivers.

MPHJ has not given up and is demanding that its case be heard in federal court and even suggesting that the Vermont attorney general should be punished for daring to stand up to it.

However a federal judge kicked the case back into state court and rejected MPHJ’s invitation to punish the state.

MPHJ appealed all the way to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, insisting that its case was closely related to the validity of its patents and that Vermont should be forced into federal court, where all patent cases are heard.

However, now that final appeal didn’t work and a panel of Federal Circuit judges rejected MPHJ, saying it didn’t have jurisdiction to overturn the federal judge’s decision.

The Vermont case is one of three fronts where MPHJ is battling the government. In Nebraska, a judge agreed that its patent demand letters were constitutionally protected free speech which is a bizarre defence. That state’s attorney general, Jon Bruning, has appealed the decision. MPHJ also tried to sue the FTC, which the watchdog is fighting.

It is not clear if MPHJ will win or lose its case in Vermont. The outfit’s hand was strengthened when the drugs companies convinced the US senate not to bring in an anti-patent-troll reform bill. If it does win then it can hassle every small business in the US which happens to have a scanner.

Autonomy chief financial officer wants to block HP settlement

Posted on July 22, 2014 by - News

HPAutonomy’s former chief financial officer is seeking to block the maker of expensive printer ink, HP from settling three shareholder lawsuits over its troubled purchase of the British software company.
Sushovan Hussain, said the “collusive and unfair” settlement in which HP officials are wrongly absolved of a $8.8 billion writedown.

Hussain, said the “collusive and unfair” settlement, if approved by a federal judge, would let HP “forever bury from disclosure the real reason for its 2012 write-down of Autonomy.

“This motion reveals the depth of the corruption that permeates the settlement,” the spokesman said. “The shareholders who have borne the losses get nothing, and learn nothing about what really happened.”

He said that it ignored HP’s destruction of Autonomy’s success after the acquisition.

The June 30 accord called for HP shareholders to end efforts to force current and former officials, including Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman, to pay damages to the Palo Alto, California-based company over its disastrous $11.1 billion Autonomy purchase.

Instead, the shareholders agreed to help HP pursue sue former Autonomy officials like Hussain and former CEO Michael Lynch.

HP announced the $8.8 billion writedown in November 2012, just over one year after buying Autonomy, and claimed it as down to accounting fraud and inflated financials by Autonomy executives.

HP spokesman Howard Clabo shrugged and said that Hussain’s opposition to the settlement is baseless. He thought that at the end of the process, the jury will conclude that Hussain engaged in a multi-billion dollar fraud.