SwpikxraniEn

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Collection of news stories and case studies showing how the granting, licensing and litigation of patents is affecting players in the software field.

Patent Enforcement News Stories

International/Worldwide

• 2006-11-20 US [News.com: Wi-Fi standards face patent threathttp://news.com.com/2100-7351-6137372.html?tag=tb]

• 2006-07-13 EU Gamespot: Sony slapped with another patent suit

• 2006-03-22 US Minneapolis Business Journal: Digital River hit with patent suit

• 2006-02-06 US Slate: Weapons of business destruction (--> Blackberry)

• 2006-01-13 US Winewiki: Borland Patent SEH affects GCC

• 2005-12-19 US Security Focus: OpenSSH cutting edge ("The second reason is more of a killer: many ECC methods are patented")

• 2005-05-12 EU ZDNet: Wine development stifled by software patent

• 2005-05-12 US ITP: HP, EMC lawsuits come to an end

• 2005-05-06 US NetworkWorld: Suit against Cisco names products, damages

• 2005-04-13 US Alacritech ./ MS: Microsoft ordered to remove feature from Longhorn

• 2005-04-13 WW ZDNet UK: IBM patent sparks open source code rewrite

• 2005-04-11 WW PostgreSQL open source database reverts to inferior caching scheme due to software patent

• 2005-03-05 EU iTunes/iPod under threat from pending US/EU Patent

• 2005-02-15 US Red Herring: Yahoo filed software patent infringement suit against SME Xfire last week

• 2005-02-15 US Wirelessweek: Padcom vs. NetMotion

• 2005-02-04 JP FFII: Matsushita sues MSWord Competitor Off the Market

• 2005-01-06 WW Debian: MPEG encoders excluded from Linux distribution because of patent enforcement

• 2004-10-30 WW Linux-Kernel Mailinglist: Writing open source graphics drivers more and more difficult due to patents

Stories With References to European Patents

• 2005-06-29 US PR: Virgin Entertainment to License NeoMedia's PaperClick Technology (also granted in Europe)

• 2005-06-21 EU p2pnetwork: VideoLan under serious threat

• 2005-06-14 EU Forbes: EU confirms investigation into telecom standards body

• 2005-06-14 EU Forbes: EU Commission probes telecom standards body over 'patent ambush' fears

• 2005-06-12 US Inquirer: RIM, Nokia, world+dog sued over phone network patent (EP equivalent was also granted but has expired)

• 2005-05-24 EU Australian IT: Futures lawsuit

• 2005-05-04 EU FinExtra: Trading Technologies serves eight weeks notice on Refco end users

• 2005-04-28 EU PR: Absolute Software Signs Patent Licensing Agreements for PC Theft Recovery with Two Computer Security Companies, Files another Patent for New Invention

• 2005-04-18 EU ZDNet UK: Funds firm faces patent suit (-> TT vs EasyScreen)

• 2005-04-18 EU HTML Fix It: Software patent: 2.5 cent trade tax to Chicago software firm (-> TT vs EasyScreen)

• 2005-04-18 EU Out-Law.com: Trading software firm files patent suit (-> TT vs EasyScreen)

• 2005-04-15 UK FinExtra: Trading Technologies turns patent fire on Man Group (-> TT vs EasyScreen)

• 2005-04-13 WW FFII: KDE instant messenger Kopete on strike against patents on IM technology

• 2005-03-24 UK FinExtra: EasyScreen destabilised by software problems and patent uncertainties (-> EasyScreen)

• 2004-11-00 Digital Theater Systems uses EP864146 to threaten features out of Videolan Project

• 2004-08-25 US Microsoft Asserts Patent on Sender-ID Standard (--> Microsoft vs FLOSS, Standards)

• 2004-08-09 Google pays Yahoo for use of patent on serving ads linked to keywords (patent also granted in DE)

• 2004-08-04 UK/EU Apple obtains patent license from E-Data for downloading music and burning it to CDs in Europe; E-Data plans infringment litigation in UK (--> patent 20 of the webshop)

• 2004-07-28 US Intergraph cashes in on Parallel Instruction and Clipper System patents: Quarterly Report says they extracted 128 mn USD from Intel, 10 mn + 2% of yearly earning from AMD, are facing counter-suits from HP, some in Europe)

• 2004-07-13 US Sony sued over image thumbnails patent

• 2004-07-13 DE Neavis ./ McDonald's

• 2004-07-04 UK/IT Godado.it sues small companies with web searching patent

• 2004-06-25 DE Teles launches litigation campaign against internet telephony companies

• 2004 UK Government in Court over Bromcom Pupil Data Managment Patent

• 2004-06-16 US/DK/SE/... Acacia sues digital tv operators

• 2004-06-14 UK/US BTG sues Microsoft with broad downloading & antivirus update patents

(Possibly) US only

• 2005-12-28 US TMCnet: Padcom(R) Files Suit Against NetMotion Alleging Invalid and Unenforceable Patent

• 2005-12-15 US PC World: Visto Sues Microsoft Over Patents

• 2005-08-09 US SC Magazine: Fortinet ordered to stop selling antivirus in U.S.

• 2005-07-16 US Slashdot: Amazon Slaps Orbitz and Avis With Patent Lawsuit* 2005-07-15 US ComputerActive: PVR sellers sued for patent infringement (-> Forgent)

• 2005-07-15 US WhatPC: Microsoft settles Longhorn patent suit

• 2005-07-15 US TechWorld: Appeal court confirms Microsoft infringed AT&T patent

• 2005-06-21 US Blackenter: Enterasys Networks Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Foundry Networks and Extreme Networks

• 2005-06-21 US The Register: Apple sued over iTunes - again

• 2005-06-21 US Slashdot: Apple Sued Over iTunes UI

• 2005-06-21 US BusinessWire: Enterasys Networks Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Foundry Networks and Extreme Networks

• 2005-06-20 US MacDailyNews: Apple sued over iTunes software interface

• 2005-06-14 US Forbes: As Patent Deal Unravels, Anxiety Rises at BlackBerry Maker

• 2005-06-09 CA National Post: Research In Motion asks court to complete US$450M settlement with NTP (--> Blackberry

• 2005-06-07 US Boston Globe: A make-or-break court case (BCGI faces closure over patent on prepay phone billing software)

• 2005-06-06 US Reuters: Microsoft ordered to pay $8.9 mln in patent case

• 2005-05-12 US Market Watch: Findwhat.com stocks gained 33 cents after Yahoo patent infringement lawsuit failed

• 2005-05-12 US Clickz: Jury Fails to Determine Validity of Yahoo Ad Tech Patent

• 2005-05-12 US PR: Avistar Announces Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against TANDBERG (Videoconferencing Technologies)

• 2005-04-29 EU Computer Business Review: Symbol sues Intermec, again* 2005-04-14 US LA Times: 4 Firms Named in Net Security Patent Suit

• 2005-04-14 US The Inquirer: Legal smoke affects Microsoft Chimney, Longhorn

• 2004-04-13 US InternetNews.com: Microsoft Hit with Patent Injunction

• 2005-04-13 US Slashdot: Startup granted injunction against Microsoft

• 2005-03-24 US Intermec PR: Intermec Files Patent Infringement Claims Against Symbol

• 2005-03-12 US gameshout.com: Yahoo Countersued by Xfire

• 2005-03-12 IE Finfacts: Microsoft pays $60 million in patent-infringement claim

• 2005-03-12 US Register-Guard: Microsoft to pay $60 million in settlement with company

• 2005-03-13 US MS PR@I-newswire: MS and Burst.com settlement

• 2004-11-05 US EcommerceTimes: Amazon Embroiled in Another Patent Suit

• 2004-11-05 US The Register: Graphics patent holder sues Sony, MS, Nintendo (--> games)

• 2004-10-25 US DMReview: Expand Beyond Corp. Announces Second Wireless Patent

• 2004-10-21 US Strategiy: McAfee awarded patent for identifying malicious behavior in software

• 2004-10-21 US CXOtoday.com: McAfee Bags Patent For Malicious Code Detection

• 2004-10-04 US Sun loses against Kodak, must pay damages & royalties for use of Java

• 2004-09-03 US Amazon sued for patent infringement by its One-Click Method

• 2004-07-30 US Class Action against Nassada for concealing defeat in software copyright+patent litigation ("On June 14, 2004, Nassda revealed that the California state court had issued orders on June 11, against defendants in the Synopsys litigation which limited Nassda's defenses and established as fact that the first 60,000 lines of source code of Nassda's Hierarchial Storage and Isomorphic Matching ("HSIM") software product and all ideas and concepts reflected therein were derived from Synopsys' code or other Synopsys materials while the defendants were employed by Synopsys.")

• 2004-07-28 US Creative Labs pressures Id Software (Doom 3) with shadow calculation patent

• 2004-07-16 US Triangle Business Journal "Etrials hit with patent-infringement lawsuit"

• 2004-07-09 US Adobe sued over patent infringement in Acrobat

• 2003-02-20 Timeline charges huge royalties from Microsoft's SQL Server customers

Australia

• 2005-01-10 AU News.com.au: $4m e-health software trashed (the Pharmacy Guild of Australia claimed ownership of key aspects of the medication record sharing system using a patent)

Patent Granting News Stories

US

• 2005-06-21 US PharmaLive: invivodata Granted Patent on Patient Compliance System

• 2005-04-29 US DMNews: I-Behavior Gets Co-op Database Software Patent

• 2005-03-02 US BusinessWire PR: Symantec Granted Patent for Key Information Security Technology

• 2005-01-12 US SightSound Technologies file injunction on Napster

• 2004-07-21 US Slashdot: Microsoft patents "encouraging viewers to pay attention to television programs, commercials in particular" (--> US6766524, Microsoft)

• 2004-07-12 US Linux Weekly News: Oracle receives Patent on Content Management

• Network Associates receives broad antispam patent

• Oracle patent on WCMS

• Microsoft patent on transmission of data through human body

• Microsoft patent on task lists

• Microsoft patent on "double-click"

• An impossible compression patent (5,533,051): pretends you can compress any file by at least one bit

Elsewhere

• 2004-09-23 SG TMCnet: ESCOM Granted Singapore Patent for Spam Filtering Technology

• 2004-08-22 AE Khaleej Times: Network Associates gets Antispam-Patent

More lists of examples

• http://www.gnu.org/patent-examp/patent-examples.html

General criticism

• 2005-04-12 EN IBM/Seebach: Naturally occurring standards, patents are a huge weakness for a standard. for instance, Unisys had a patent governing a bit of the algorithm used for GIF images. In general, patents are a huge weakness for a standard. The MP3 standard is used very widely by people who simply don't know -- or don't care -- that someone theoretically has a patent on part of it, and only some code using the patented algorithm actually has a license from the patent holder. Developers and users can be bitten by this many years after they make the design decision to use a patented algorithm, due to the nature of patents (see Resources). De jure standards often require contributors to clearly disclose any known patents; de facto standards generally have no way to do this.