Nokia has filed a lawsuit against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic in United States and Germany. Nokia says these companies infringe a number of their patents related dual function antennas, power management, as well as on the software front like app stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device.

“Many of these inventions are fundamental to Nokia products,” said Louise Pentland, chief legal officer. “We’d rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorized use of our inventions.”

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The lawsuit drama between Apple and Samsung reached a new level as the Dusseldorf court has banned Samsung tablet in Germany. The court upheld their previous injunction stating the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did infringe on Apple patents and copied iPad’s minimalist design.

Interestingly, other manufacturers like Acer, Asus and Toshiba won’t have the same problem as the judge ruled the tablet design from these manufacturers are totally different.

[Via Netbooknews]

The patent war between Apple and HTC continues as the Taiwanese giant has filed a lawsuit and amended a complaint with the ITC in the United States. However, the news that makes it more interesting is that HTC is using patents that were previously owned by Google.

According to Bloomberg, Google had gained ownership of 9 patents (4 from Motorola, 3 from Openwave and 2 from Palm) less than a year ago only to give it to HTC to pit it against the iPhone maker.

The newly obtained patents allege Apple products to infringe a way of upgrading software wirelessly, an interface that allows adding identifiers such as .com, .org and more.

The patent war between HTC and Apple has escalated as the Taiwanese mobile maker has sued Apple in the U.S. District Court of Delaware. HTC claims three of its patents are infringed by Apple Mac computers, iPhone and iPad. HTC wants the court to halt import and sales of the infringing products and seek damages against willful infringement.

The federal lawsuit comes after both the companies filed a complaint with the ITC recently.

[Via Reuters]

Sony and LG have announced to settle their patent infringement fracas by entering into a new agreement. Both companies have reached a “memorandum of understanding” wherein both companies will withdraw their ongoing complaints and lawsuits against each other. Although the intrinsic details of the agreement are kept confidential, both companies have agreed to share each other’s patents.

LG and Sony were involved in a legal battle since last year and requested a ban on the infringed products.

[Via Bloomberg]

This is a huge blow for Samsung. The German District Court has issued a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, which basically bars Samsung to sell their latest tablet in the European region except Netherlands. The injunction was awarded to Apple after the court found Samsung to infringe on Apple’s patent related to iPad.

Additionally, the court has ordered Samsung to pay up to 250,000 euros in fine for each violation and possibility of Samsung management being imprisoned for continued violations.

The injunction is effective immediately but I’m certain Samsung will appeal against the decision considering its the biggest market at stake.

[Via Sammy Hub]

Taiwan-based HTC confirmed that they’re willing to talk to the iPhone maker for patent infringements. HTC’s CFO Winston Yung said to Bloomberg they’re “open to having discussions” provided the terms are “fair and reasonable.”

Yung also confirmed that although they’re were having an on and off discussions with Apple, no formal talks have been conducted after the ITC ruling, which claimed HTC to infringe two Apple patents.

Despite infringing two patents, HTC still has an equal leverage on the lawsuit due to ITC’s previous ruling of Apple infringing two S3 Graphics patents. HTC recently acquired the graphics company.

[Via Bloomberg]

HTC might have lost the initial determination in the ITC complaint against Apple but the Taiwanese mobile maker has vowed to “defend themselves.” The US ITC ruled that out of 10 Apple-asserted patents, HTC is infringing on 2 patents.

HTC claims they have a strong case for the ITC appeal, even stating that an ITC Staff Attorney independently argued at trial that HTC does not violate any of the 10 Apple patents.

HTC is also hinting to pull its recently acquired S3 Graphics in the legal mud by saying they could use S3 Graphics’ patent which ITC had ruled Apple to infringe upon.

It won’t be surprising if both companies agree to settle out of court.

Press Release

Dolby Labs yesterday confirmed that they’re suing BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion for infringing some of its patents related to digital audio compression. Dolby has filed lawsuits in US and Germany and is seeking recovery of financial damages and injunctions to halt sales of infringed products.

The lawsuit says RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook employs Dolby’s unlicensed patented technology that allows to enjoy high-quality audio with limited amount of transmission or storage space for audio.

“Litigation was regrettably our last resort after RIM declined to pay for the use of Dolby’s technology,” said Andy Sherman, executive vice president and general counsel of Dolby. “We have a duty to protect our intellectual property.”

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After months and months (almost 20 months) of suing and countersuing, Apple and Nokia have settled their legal disputes by entering into a patent license agreement. Under this agreement, both the companies will withdraw pending patent litigations as well as complaints to the US International Trade Commission.

Apple will pay Nokia a one-time fee and royalties for the term of the agreement.

Needless to say, this is good news for the Finnish giant as the incoming revenue will help them improve their financial outlook for Q2 2011.

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