To Richard Posner, patent protection is less important in some industries than in others. Last June, Judge Posner dismissed a case in which Apple and Motorola sued each other for alleged infringement of patents for smartphone components.  The problem, according to Posner, was that neither party had properly calculated damages.  “[G]uesswork,” he wrote, referring to [...]

When purchased, a cellphone is “locked” into the network of the carrier through which it was bought.  In the past, cellphones have been “unlocked” by consumers so that they can work on any network–this has been useful for international travelers as well as people who just enjoy the freedom to choose a phone with whichever [...]

The U.S. Copyright Office has stated you can go jailbreak your phone, but that tablet of yours is off-limits. The cited reasons include the fact that smartphones have been more widely adopted by society, the definition of a tablet is “ill-defined,” and videogames are more complex and harder to create than smartphone apps. Interestingly, the [...]

With the role that technology plays in today’s world, companies are constantly on the initiative to develop something new to stay ahead of the competition. After all, innovations are not only useful for the consumer, but the company as well, particularly when it comes to making sure that the “secrets” stay put. It therefore comes [...]

Samsung may not be the only company Apple has to worry about in the smartphone patent wars. Earlier this month, GooPhone, a Hong Kong-based smartphone manufacturer notorious for creating iPhone clones, vowed to sue Apple in China upon release of the iPhone 5. The iPhone hit stores on September 21st, though as of yet, no [...]

Last month, the all time epic patent battle between Apple and Samsung was decided. Apple was declared victorious over Samsung and received an award of $1.05 billion in damages for Samsung’s patent infringements. But when did this battle start? How big was this battle? And is it truly over? For those following this story closely, [...]

A San Francisco federal court ordered RIM (the suffering company that makes BlackBerry devices, which you may vaguely remember as those things you used before you got an iPhone) to pay $147 million in damages to Mformation Technologies for patent infringement.  The jury found that Mformation successfully demonstrated that RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which is [...]

A federal court recently denied a preliminary injunction request by television broadcasters to prevent a company from broadcasting television over the Internet.  Aereo, a company founded last year, provides access to TV broadcasts to its customers via smartphones, tablets, and Internet-enabled TV’s, as well as the ability to record such programming.  The broadcasters argue that [...]

The world’s largest maker of cell phones, Samsung Electronics, was recently banned from selling its Galaxy Nexus smart phones, which is a direct competitor with the iPhone.  Apple Inc. sued Samsung alleging that the Galaxy infringes on at least two of Apple’s patents.  But now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has weighed [...]

Earlier this month media reports of increased government surveillance of electronic communications have rattled the public on both sides of the Atlantic.  Here in the United States, the ACLU revealed on April 2 that it had surveyed about 200 law enforcement agencies across the country and found that many of them track cell phones without [...]