Law and Innovation

This article originally appeared on  IP Flow  at  http://mimesislaw.com/category/ipflow   The European Commission (EC) antitrust team and Google are continually at loggerheads. The latest: a   formal antitrust complaint   over Android and another separate complaint on prioritization of shopping search results. This investigation is the second major case between the two frenemies.     What’s going on ? The EC is claiming that Google has abused its dominant position by imposing restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile operators and by promoting its services and apps. To be in a dominant position in Europe is not in itself illegal, but the company has a special responsibility to ensure that its conduct does not distort competition ( Article 102 TFEU ). What kind of business practices the EC is objecting to ? As explained in the  complaint , Google breaches EU antitrust rules by: “Requiring manufacturers to pre-install...

Fresh and interesting article posted on FOSS Patents about the Oracle v. Google Android-Java copyright case. The suspense was all killing us but yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States finally denied the petition for a writ of certiorari. Happy reading! "The copyrightability of code relating to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) may elicit more heat than light from a small but vocal group of people. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, has not concluded that there is anything quite so special about the subject that Google's petition for writ of certiorari (request for Supreme Court review) in Oracle's Android-Java copyright case should be granted. At its Thursday conference, the court denied the petition, as just reported by Reuters court reporter Dan Levine on Twitter . And as he accurately noted , this is a "huge victory" for Oracle. The order list is now available online. On page 11 you can find this entry: 14-410 GOOG...

Fresh and interesting article posted on BI about why and how Apple is now an existential threat to Android. In Q4, Android still sold 206 million phones whereas Apple (only) sold 75 million. Nevertheless, it's the first time that Android has seen a quarter of sales declines. Happy reading!  "For the first time ever, sales of  Google's Android mobile devices have gone into decline  — an astonishing defeat for a product that is given away free to manufacturers. Google ought to be terrified at this news. Apple's iOS operating system for iPhone and iPad is trampling all over the Android world right now. This isn't just an incremental shift in market share. This is, if left unchecked, an existential turning point for Android and its developers and manufacturers. After all, if you can't win a battle against a product that costs about $700/£550 with a product that's equally good but free, then you're screwed. "Defeat" for Android is rel...

Recently, the Supreme Court of the United Sates, the highest federal court in the United States, has sought help from the Solicitor General concerning whether it should hear a Android-Java copyright case between Oracle America and Google.  The U.S. Supreme Court has so far not confirmed whether it will hear the case.  Instead, "[t]he Solicitor General is invited to file a brief in this case expressing the views of the United States". As explained on the Department of Justice's site , this person (Donald Verrilli) "determines the cases in which Supreme Court review will be sought by the government and the positions the government will take before the Court. The Office's staff attorneys, Deputy Solicitors General and Assistants to the Solicitor General, participate in preparing the petitions, briefs, and other papers filed by the government in the Supreme Court. The Solicitor General conducts the oral arguments before the Supreme Court". As a reminder...

Fresh and interesting article posted on Business Insider about "9 New iPhone Features Apple Copied From Android And Others Today".  Should we all be super impressed by what we heard during Apple's annual developers conference, WWDC 2014 keynote, on Monday? I have mixed feelings about that. Don't get me wrong, I like and love Apple. However, it appears that the tradition of "borrowing" software features from big and small companies continues this year. In several lawsuits, Apple likes to refer to other competitors, such as Samsung, as "copyist". Yesterday, in CA, it was hard to miss that most of the (new) features were copied from Android and other popular apps and services like Dropbox, WhatsApp, Google Drive and Snapchat. One may ask: Is Apple still an innovator Company today? Happy reading! "Apple's Spotlight search now lets you search the internet too. Google's Android search feature has been able to do this for a lon...

Fresh and interesting article : There’s no such thing as a stupid question… Although this question may seem to be targeting just a few companies desiring to build a device compatible with a given Android version, it may also give you a short overview on how Google is using Android as a trademark.  As you can read on Wikipedia, Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, in October 2003, by 4 persons: Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.), Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV). [1] In November 2007, just a few months after the original and revolutionary iPhone came out [2] , the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was announced. On September 23, 2008 the current leading smartphone platform in the world was launched as an open source project. As you know, Android falls into two categories: the open parts from the AOSP, which are the foundation of Andro...