A court in the Hague in has denied Apple’s request to ban the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the Netherlands. In August a Dutch judge banned Samsung’s local subsidiaries from selling the Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy S II, but the Hague court has reportedly now ruled that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 is unique enough to be sold alongside Apple’s iPad. Samsung and Apple are currently locked in a number of legal battles around the globe including in France, Japan, the United States and German...

A judge with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled Monday that HTC is guilty of infringing Apple’s patents in several devices. The ITC also ordered a ban on the import of several of HTC’s smartphones although it is unclear which models are affected. The ban will take effect on April 19th. “Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International Trade Commission has found a violation of section 337 in this investigation and has issued a limited exclusion order prohibiting ...

IPCom has reportedly moved to ban HTC from selling smartphones in Germany. HTC lost a patent lawsuit to IPCom in 2009 and recently decided not to file an appeal against the ruling, likely in an effort to avoid further litigation it might have faced from a ruling on two additional patent cases. HTC may ignore IPCom’s request to stop selling smartphones because it believes IPCom’s lawsuit is no longer valid. According to BBC, HTC has argued that the German Federal Patents court ruled that IPComR...

If you are a company that has developed an Android product of any sort, chances are Microsoft has attempted to sue you or drag you in to an expensive licensing agreement. Samsung, HTC and ViewSonic are just a few of the larger firms that currently have deals in place with Microsoft. Barnes & Noble is the latest Android device maker to find itself in Microsoft’s line of fire, but it is not giving up the battle so easily. The retailer recently asked the Justice Department to probe the Redmond-based ...

Steve Jobs made contact with Samsung in an effort to resolve a patent argument last year, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. However, Jobs did not participate in the discussions that eventually took place and deteriorated, Apple’s patent attorney Richard Lutton explained during a hearing in an Australian court. “Samsung is an important supplier with whom we have a deep relationship” Lutton said while being questioned by a Samsung lawyer. “We wanted to give them a chance to do the right th...

Apple may invest $1 billion in a Sharp LCD factory to ensure adequate production of screens for its iPhone and iPad, according to MF Global FXA Securities analyst David Rubenstein. Apple typically buys its LCD displays from Samsung, LG and Chimei Innolux, although recent reports have suggested the iPhone maker has boosted its orders with Samsung after LG failed to meet iPad 2 display requirements. However, Apple’s recent legal battles with Samsung in the United States, the European Union and Australia c...

Apple, Google and Samsung are examining InterDigital and its 8,800-patent portfolio, and at least one is expected to bid on the company, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. InterDigital is based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and analysts from Algorithm Capital and Dougherty & Co. said the firm could be worth as much as $5 billion. InterDigital owns patents related to transferring data over wireless networks and its inventions have been used in Android and BlackBerry smartphones as well as the iPhone, Bloo...

The European Commission now has a total of nine formal antitrust complaints targeting Google, Reuters reported on Tuesday. “The new complaints come from small companies,” one source told the news outlet, and another said two of the complaints were new while three came from national regulators. Until Tuesday, the EC had only confirmed that there were four total complaints. Microsoft has also filed a formal complaint with the European Commission and its general counsel, Brad Smith, said that the s...

Apple has inked an agreement with Samsung in Australia that prevents the South Korean company from selling its competing Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet there. According to Bloomberg, Samsung cannot sell the tablet until Australian courts rule whether or not the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes on 10 Apple patents. Apple alleges that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 copies the touchscreen tech found on the iPad and also has the same “look and feel.” Samsung agreed not to advertise the device and Apple said it will pay damages...

Spotify launched in the United States less than two weeks ago and it is already the target of a patent infringement lawsuit. A firm called PacketVideo is suing and alleges that Spotify is infringing on patent 5,646,276 for “a device for the distribution of music information in digital form.” The patent describes a method of accessing music through a “central memory device” that is connected to a “communications network and has a databank of digitized music information.” Sur...

United States International Trade Commission judge James Gildea has ruled that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system infringes on two patents owned by S3. Judge Gildea also ruled that the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch do not infringe on S3′s patents, however. The patents in question are related to NVIDIA graphics chips used in Apple’s Mac computers, but it is unclear which devices exactly are infringing on S3′s technology. HTC purchased S3 for $300 million in early July, and a different ITC ...

Apple, Google, HTC, Samsung, Microsoft… it’s hard to name a technology company that’s not currently involved in a patent battle with another firm. Google’s general counsel Kent Walker thinks the legal battles could actually hurt consumers and the landscape of today’s ever changing smartphone market. “The tech industry has a significant problem,” Walker said. “Software patents are kind of gumming up the works of innovation.” Google chairman Eric Schmidt rec...

Speaking with Bloomberg recently, HTC’s chief financial officer Winston Yung said that his company is open to cutting a deal with Apple over various patents the two companies are currently fighting over. “We have to sit down and figure it out,” Yung said. “We are open to all sorts of solutions, as long as the solution and the terms are fair and reasonable. On and off we’ve had discussions with Apple, even before the initial determination came out.” Earlier this month, an International ...

The U.S. International Trade Commission said on Tuesday its May ruling that Kodak did not infringe on Apple’s patents will stand. The two companies have been locked up in two separate legal battles for the better part of this year. Here’s how it started: Kodak first filed lawsuits against Apple and Research In Motion and accused both firms of infringing on its camera patents. That case was called “In the Matter of Certain Mobile Telephones and Wireless Communication Devices Featuring Digital...