Law and Innovation

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...

Fresh and interesting article from TorrentFreak about how Turkey’s Prime Minister, Erdogan, failed at banning Twitter, as local citizens found easy workarounds with tech tools, such as VPNs and DNS. Enjoy the reading!  "Friday's news that the Turkish government had banned its citizens from accessing Twitter was depressing but an opportunity to be embraced. Forewarned is forearmed, and the fact that Turks are learning how to beat censorship with VPNs and DNS tricks better prepares them for the future. Two days ago on the campaign trail ahead of end-of-March elections, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan showed his Internet naivety by doing something extremely silly. In the midst of a corruption scandal he first threatened and then carried through with an outright ban of Twitter. “I don’t care what the international community says at all. Everyone will see the power of the Turkish Republic,” Erdogan said on Thursday. Angry that Twitter did not respond to request...

Fresh and interesting article from The Verge . After Siri (Apple) and Google Now (Google), a new Microsoft digital personal assistant enters the market "Cortana".  "Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update will include Cortana, a personal digital assistant designed to rival Siri and Google Now. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans have revealed to The Verge how Cortana looks and operates , replacing the built-in Bing search functionality on Windows Phone 8.1. While the feature is named after the Halo game series, Cortana will take the form of a circular animated icon instead of a female character. Cortana will animate when it’s speaking or thinking, forming a personality not dissimilar to Apple’s Siri. Nicknames just like Siri . Just like Siri, Cortana will also allow Windows Phone users to set how they want to be addressed by the voice-activated assistant. Cortana can call users by their name or nicknames like "Master Chief...

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...

Fresh and interesting article from the famous IP Blog The IPKat  concerning historic patents in the winter Olympic Games. I also recommend you the Gizmodo article (see here ) and the USPTO Twitter account if you want to have a full coverage of these patents mixing new and old technologies. Happy reading! "As Kat readers are well-aware, the 2014 Winter Olympics is in full swing. It may surprising, however, that efforts have been made to link the Winter Olympics to patents. In that connection, and thanks to the Patent Analytics group on LinkedIn, this Kat came across an item on gizmodo.com entitled “17 historic patents that made winter Olympic sports possible”,  here . The article notes that the United States Patent and Trademark Office “is releasing historic patents that reveal how winter sports emerged.“ On the basis of this list, as well as additional digging by the author of further relevant patents, the article identifies the following patents: 1....