Published: 9/30/15Publication: CNETMicrosoft and Google have agreed to end their ongoing patent dispute, dismissing all pending lawsuits against each other. The two rival companies said Wednesday that they had agreed to dismiss about 20 lawsuits brought against each during the past five years over royalties for patents related to smartphones, [...]

Published: 9/30/15Publication: GeekWireAfter years of wrangling over Google’s Chrome and Android technologies, Microsoft and the search giant announced a wide-ranging legal settlement this afternoon. Here’s a joint statement that the two companies released today: “Microsoft and Google are pleased to announce an agreement on patent issues. As part of the [...]

Published: 9/17/15Publication: FOSS PatentsAt a hearing in March, Apple faced a skeptical court for its fourth or so attempt to obtain a U.S. patent injunction against Samsung. Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a ruling that vacates Judge Koh's August 2014 denial of an [...]

Published: 8/28/15Publication: National Law ReviewThe long-awaited ruling regarding the circumstances under which the owner of a standard-essential patent (SEP) encumbered by fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms may seek injunctive relief has been delivered by the Court of Justice of the European Union, in Huawei v. ZTE, Case No. 170/130 [...]

Published: 7/31/15Publication: Essential Patent BlogYesterday, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals issued a decision affirming Judge Robart’s RAND decision in the much watched Microsoft v. Motorola case, basically ruling that the determination of a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) royalty rate and Motorola’s breach of its RAND commitments were reasonable based [...]

Published: 7/30/15Publication: Bloomberg BusinessMicrosoft Corp. won an appeals court ruling that may lower the rates many electronics makers pay to license technology considered standard in smartphones and computers. An appeals court in San Francisco Thursday upheld a $14.5 million jury verdict against Google Inc. as punishment for unfairly demanding what [...]

Published: 7/16/15Publication: Out-Law.comThe Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that the owner of a standard-essential patent (SEP) could be abusing its dominant position by bringing a prohibitory injunction against an infringer of that patent if it has not first written to the infringer laying out terms [...]

Published: 7/16/15Publication: Essential Patent BlogToday, a European Union high court issued a ruling that provides guidance on what steps the owner of a FRAND-encumbered patent that may be essential to a standard should take before seeking injunctive relief. The court also ruled that a willing licensee should act without delay, [...]

Published: 5/21/15Publication: FOSS PatentsThe debate over privateering (patent transfers by large operating companies to so-called non-producing entities or patent assertion entities) is in full swing, and it will be with us for a while. The week before last I made a call for input in an effort to build a [...]

Published: 4/16/15Publication: The National Law ReviewOn April 14 in Washington, DC, Global Competition Review hosted its Second Annual IP & Antitrust USA conference. The conference covered various hot topics being closely followed by IP antitrust practitioners, including (1) the evolution of the US antitrust agencies’ approach to standards and standard [...]