Law and Innovation

Apple’s success story is well-known: “Before 2007, mobile phones were bulky, inelegantly designed boxes with multiple buttons and protruding antennas”. The context hasn’t changed either: Samsung, faced with a crisis of design, “ made a deliberate decision to copy the iPhone’s innovative look and many of its other features, and its mobile devices became iPhone clones ”. And now we know the result: the petition for writ of certiorari (request for U.S. Supreme Court review) is granted, at least, to question 2 (see below). The tone in Apple’s brief opposition petition for writ of certiorari ("cert. petition"; a brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to hear a case) seemed strong, but wasn’t good enough to convince the SCOTUS not to review the Federal Circuit's decision (786 F.3d 983). After a 120-year hiatus, the highest judicial body in the United States will, again, examine the valuation of design patents. Apple did however “win” regarding the scope of the d...

Fresh and interesting article posted on WIPR about the East Texas Federal District Court jury verdict that ordered Apple to pay $626 million to (patent troll) VirnetX for willfully infringing patents with FaceTime, iMessage, and VPN services. Time for a U.S. patent reform!? Happy reading! "A Texas court has ruled that Apple infringed four patents owned by licensing company VirnetX and has ordered the technology company to pay $625 million in damages. Yesterday, February 3, a jury at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that Apple’s FaceTime, iMessage and VPN On Demand services infringed the patents. All four patents cover an online secure communication network. According to the final order, VirnetX proved through a “preponderance of evidence” that Apple was liable for infringement. In total, the court  awarded  VirnetX $625.6 million in damages. Jason Cassady, principal at Caldwell, Cassady & Curry and representing VirnetX,  said : “...

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...

Tech predictions for 2015 are all around: A smartphone-PC marriage , cyber attacks, the continuing rise of wearable technology (particularly smart watches), phablets, drones, Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, mobile payments system, etc. In sum, 2015 is going to be exciting!  But what about smartphones, more precisely, iPhone? It seems the iPhone generation is over. La boucle est bouclée. Most of the mobile trends to watch in 2015 articles are talking about everything related to mobile except a new iPhone... and that makes sense.  Let's take a closer look at the Apple iPhone timeline and evolution And now at the Apple iPad timeline and evolution And finally a closer look at the recent iDevices Considering how big the iPhone 6 Plus is, a new iPhone 7 seems unlikely. A "super" mini iPad too. The iDevice generation is completed. And that's a good thing. Big improvements are sometimes better than small new evolutions. Or perhaps Apple is still ...

Fresh and interesting article posted on The New York Times  about the third antitrust lawsuit Apple is facing on December 2 this y: "The Apple iPod iTunes Anti-Trust Litigation". U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers is presiding over the case. Happy reading! "SAN FRANCISCO — Three years after his death, Steve Jobs is very much a presence in courtrooms across the country. And that’s not necessarily good news for Apple. In December, the company is set to go to trial in the third major antitrust lawsuit it has faced since Mr. Jobs died. His emails will play an important role in the case, as they did in the last two. But lawyers will probably have to work hard to give his statements a positive spin. The potential damages — around $350 million — are a pittance for a company that in its last quarter had an $8.5 billion profit. Executives are often told by their lawyers to be careful what they put in writing for fear it will end up as evidence in a courtroo...

Apple just sent out invitations for the Apple event occurring on September 9, 2014.  Only a couple of days to the big event. Let the countdown begin... 

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 posted on Mashable concerning the big news that Apple is close to buying Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion and the real reason behind it. "(....) If Apple does buy Beats for roughly $3 billion, a deal that is widely reported to be in its closing stages, it won't be because of the headphones. (Though given the fact that Apple sells Beats cans in every Apple store in the world, and has exact sales figures for each model, keeping all that profit to itself would be a nice boost for the bottom line.) No, this is more about Beats' streaming music service, Apple's tenacious grip on music distribution, and the fact that with a deal like this, Apple could easily become a recording industry giant that cuts out the middleman entirely — a notion that keeps executives at Sony, Universal, EMI and the rest of the major labels up at night. When Apple CEO Tim Cook had a high-level summit with Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine during a visit to LA...

Fresh and interesting memo posted on the European Commission's website about frequently asked questions concerning these antitrust decisions on standard essential patents (SEPs) - Motorola Mobility and Samsung Electronics. I also recommend you this   Beginner's Guide To Standards-Essential Patent, Standard-Developing Organizations And [F]RAND Terms In The Smartphone Patent Wars. Happy reading and learning!  " What is an injunction? An injunction is a court order aimed at preventing the continuation of a patent infringement. Generally, it includes the prohibition to sell the product infringing the patent. Such injunctions can be preliminary – as a precautionary measure typically for the time of the assessment of the case on the merits by the court. Injunctions can also be permanent as a result of the decision on the merits by a court. What is a standard essential patent (SEP)? SEPs are patents essential to implement a specific industry standard.  Thi...

Fresh and ( very) interesting  article posted on Wired about the imminent future of wearable technologies.  Happy reading!  "Data will not help you if you can’t see it when you need it. For Dan Eisenhardt—a competitive swimmer for more than a decade, beginning as a 9-year-old in his native Denmark—the data he needed in the water, what he could never know in the water, was his splits. His event was the 1,500-meter freestyle, the longest slog in the sport, a near-mile of grinding exertion divided into 15 laps of 100 meters apiece. As with every distance sport, pacing is all; lag your target time on the first two laps and you may never catch up, but accidentally beat it and you’ll load your tissue with lactic acid, doom your endgame. How fast was his last lap? How did it compare to his usual pace? His coach up on the pool deck could know, his parents in the stands could know. But Eisenhardt, at war in the water, could only guess. The rigors of engineering school e...

Fresh and interesting image showing how much major tech companies make in one second. In just ONE second, Apple makes $1,997, while Google makes $658. Facebook brings in $81.

Fresh and interesting article posted on Patently Apple about this "new" technology that allows mobile apps to recognize when a smartphone is near a small wireless sensor called a Beacon or iBeacon as well. As you know, indoor spaces often block cell signals and make it nearly impossible to locate devices via GPS. Beacons are the solution for indoor mobile communications and proximity detection technology (and as you can imagine, iBeacon is the Apple Trademark of it).  More precisely, Apple defines this technology as a "a new class of low-powered, low-cost transmitters that can notify nearby iOS 7 devices of their presence, provides apps a whole new level of location awareness, such as trail markers in a park, exhibits in a museum, or product displays in stores. Other new features include the ability to setup and configure Wi-Fi accessories, such as AirPlay speakers, directly from iOS. And iOS 7 works with more Bluetooth LE profiles, including time, notifica...

Fresh and interesting article (posted on LinkedIn on March 27, 2014): Let’s get excited! The second big California patent lawsuit between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. (case No. C 12-00630 LHK [1] ) will kick off on Monday (March 31, 2014 - 9:00 a.m). Hon. Lucy H. Koh will be presiding over the case. The first day will be devoted to jury selection and the trial is expected to last approximately 14 days. The first time around, on August 24, 2012, one of the most watched trials ever in the tech world and, probably, one of the most interesting intellectual property case took place in California ( Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. et al , case No. C 11-1846 LHK). As you all remember, Samsung has been found guilty of infringing on several patents (design and utility) and trade dress owned by Apple . All in all, the jury found 28 products to infringe some of Apple's intellectual property rights and awarded more than $1 billion damages, and rejected al...