Patent wars plague Internet Age

The Internet Age is becoming as known for patent litigation as it is for online innovation.

From the makers of computer chips to creators of smartphones and designers of videogames, rivalries have spread from marketplaces to courtrooms with combatants warring over rights to use technology.

"For many years, there was basically a stalemate in the patents arms race with an understanding that companies wouldn't sue each other," said Colleen Chien, a law professor at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley.

"That was disrupted by a new business model of patent assertion," she continued. "It has become acceptable to violate the gentlemen's agreement of not suing and now it is the new norm."

The break in the unofficial truce was inspired in part by "patent trolls," entities that buy or file patents with the sole intent of some day suing entrepreneurs who use the ideas.

Ranks of patent trolls are growing, as is the number of large companies turning to patent litigation not just to cash-in but to gain or protect market terrain, according to Chien.

"What do you call an AOL or a dying company that turns to patent lawsuits?" she asked rhetorically. "Do they become corporate trolls?"

Struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! last month filed a lawsuit against Facebook accusing the social networking star of infringing on 10 of its patents.

The suit claimed that "Facebook's entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo!'s patented social networking technology."

Facebook returned fire with a countersuit accusing Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo! of being the one infringing on patents, and not the other way around.

Even business software giant Oracle has weighed in. A trial will get underway on Monday in a patent case Oracle filed against Google based on software used in Android operating systems.

As patent suits proliferate, Internet firms with ample war chests are spending small fortunes to arm themselves with portfolios purchased from technology companies selling off intellectual assets.

AOL this week announced plans to sell more than 800 patents to Microsoft in a $1.056 billion deal giving the faded Internet star a needed cash injection.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said that the software giant is getting "a valuable portfolio that we have been following for years."

Facebook in March confirmed that it bought 750 software and networking patents from IBM to beef up it arsenal on an increasingly lawsuit-strewn technology battlefield.

Early this year, Google bought 188 patents and 29 patent applications related to mobile phones from IBM but did not disclose how much it paid.

Last year, IBM sold Google 2,000 or so patents ranging from mobile software to computer hardware and processors.

Google has been strengthening its patent portfolio as the fight for dominance in the booming smartphone and tablet computer markets increasingly involves patent lawsuits - with Apple a prime litigator.

The Mountain View, California, technology titan behind Android mobile device software last year transferred patents to smartphone giant HTC Corp. to help the Taiwan-based company in an intellectual property clash with iPhone maker Apple.

Apple has accused HTC and other smartphone makers using Google's Android mobile operating system of infringing on Apple-held patents.

Some of the patents that HTC got from Google had belonged to Motorola Mobility, which Google is buying for $12.5 billion in cash in a quest for precious patents.

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies," Google chief executive Larry Page said when the Motorola Mobility buy was announced.

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  Motorola Mobility chief executive Sanjay Jha told financial analysts the US maker of smartphones and touchscreen tablet computers has over 17,000 issued patents and another 7,500 pending.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft allied in a consortium that outbid Google to buy thousands of patents from bankrupt Nortel Corp. in what was branded the largest transfer of intellectual property of the Internet Age.

"The reality is, there is more and more liability in making a product," Chien said. "Companies like Google and Facebook with few patents but big roles in the marketplace have the most to lose."

Patent suits in hot Internet markets are not necessarily bad news for consumers, provided that companies cashing in use windfalls to develop even more innovative products, according to Chien.

Managing patents could also become a potential source of competitive advantage for startups.

"The Facebook example shows that you can go out and buy patent protection," Chien said. "It is only when you are making money that you become interesting as a target, and when you are making money you can afford to buy patents."

Reference: http://yhoo.it/Ji3oKP

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New Ways to Make Your Android Gadget a Desktop or Laptop PC

Many people carry two or more gadgets with them, all with Internet access and the ability to run apps. But when you have your songs on one machine, your ebooks on another, and your games back at home on your PC or Mac, it means that you're disconnected from part of your computing essentials wherever you go.

One way to get around this is to use Web apps you can get to from anywhere, like WordPress and Evernote. Another is to use one gadget that replaces some or all of the others. Here's a look at the ways to do this, including a couple of new ones.

Buy an all-in-one gadget

The poster child for this approach is the Motorola Atrix, which debuted alongside a "webtop" attachment which was basically a laptop that only works with your phone plugged into it. The laptop itself was slow and prone to crashing, however, and could only run the Mozilla Firefox Web browser,or Android apps inside a window the size of your phone's screen.

A YouTube user named revowii, however, has leaked a video of the beta version of Motorola's Webtop 3.0 software. This build is based on the new Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, and uses faster native apps instead of a full desktop Web browser. It's also capable of scaling your Android apps up to match the size of your screen; especially handy if you have the media dock, which connects your phone to your HDTV.

Other upcoming all-in-one devices include the Asus Padfone, a hybrid tablet-smartphone that is now taking preorders in Taiwan, and the KT Spider, a design that includes a laptop dock and even a PSP-style gamepad attachment (but which may not come to North America). Toshiba has also released pictures of a concept design for an all-in-one Lifebook laptop.

Pick up attachments

Several Android smartphones and tablets feature HDMI ports, and the ability to mirror their screens on an HDTV. Bluetooth is also a standard feature, allowing you to connect a keyboard to your device. And the Asus Transformer is a tablet designed around the attachable keyboard concept; the keyboard is a dock which transforms it into a laptop, complete with an extended battery and a touchpad. Asus just recently announced a sub-$400 Transformer tablet ($150 extra for the keyboard attachment), which should be on the market soon.

Upgrade your software

Ubuntu, a popular desktop operating system upgrade for PCs and Macs, is now capable of running onAndroid phones. The phones switch to the full Ubuntu desktop when they are plugged into a large screen. This feature was demonstrated at Mobile World Congress in February. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu's marketing and some of its development, is trying to get wireless networks and handset makers to build the feature into their phones.

Meanwhile, modern remote desktop software and the OnLive app allow Android device owners to play modern PC and console games, or even access their home PC or Mac's desktop over the Internet. These require a fast connection and are best used with external peripherals, though.

Reference: http://yhoo.it/IM20nC

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Samsung Kicks Nokia Out of Top Spot: Poll

Bloomberg | Getty Images

Korea's Samsung Electronics ended Nokia Oyj's 14-year leadership of the global cellphone market in the first quarter of the year, outselling the struggling Finnish handset maker for the first time ever, according to a Reuters poll of analysts.

The poll showed analysts on average expect Samsung to have sold 88 million cellphones in January through March, surpassing the 83 million which Nokia sold in the quarter.

Nokia had announced the sales total on Wednesday when it warned of losses from the phones business in the first and second quarter. Samsung is due to release quarterly numbers on April 27. Nokia [NOK  4.02    -0.21  (-4.96%) ] has struggled for several years in the smartphone race, but its dominance in the lower end of the market has allowed it to keep its rank as the world's largest cellphone maker by volume.

The fall of the Finnish firm has been rapid over the last few months as in a similar poll in January it was still expected to stay far ahead of Samsung.

"After 14 years as the largest global mobile phone maker, getting knocked off the top spot will come as a bitter blow to Nokia," said Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight, who has followed the industry since the 1990s.

"In contrast it will be greeted with euphoria by Samsung - they'll be dancing from the boardroom to the factory floor," Wood said.

Nokia became the world's largest cellphone maker 1998 when it overtook Motorola - at a time when Samsung had just entered the industry - and it controlled around 40 percent of the market for years before Apple [AAPL  605.23    -17.54  (-2.82%)  ] iPhone was unveiled in 2007, launching the smartphone boom.

Some analysts said losing the top spot would be a blow to Nokia, but would have little impact on its attempt to turn around its fortunes.

"I think it will hurt them from a PR perspective, but in reality it does not change anything: at the end of the day the problems are the same if they remain the No 1 or become the No 2," said analyst Carolina Milanesi at Gartner.

Reference: http://bit.ly/IRFbvk

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