patent infringement

With patent infringement accusations going every which way in recent months, we're certainly familiar with Apple/Samsung banter. Now Apple has thrown yet another punch at the Korean smartphone maker, targeting its Galaxy S II, Galaxy S Plus and eight other handsets.

Messing with TiVo's patents is a losing proposition for rival distributors of digital video recorders, as AT&T just became the most recent competitor to discover -- to the tune of at least $215 million.

RPX has been in business since just 2008, but it has rapidly built a list of big-name clients attracted to its novel service. It offers tech companies a way to gain access to patents without having to own them outright -- and without having to deal with litigious "patent trolls."

In a complaint to the U.S. International Trade Commission, Sony has accused rival LG Electronics of infringing on seven of its patents, including one for photo-based caller ID technology.

A patent lawsuit brought by Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen against Apple, Google, and Yahoo, among others, has been dismissed. The judge found the suit, which failed to specify the products or devices that infringed on patents from Allen's company, too vague.

A few months ago, Oracle rocked the Internet world by suing Google for patent infringement based on the Android mobile operating system's use of Java. Now, Google has laid out its defenses, and its countersuit might well invalidate Oracle's Java patents altogether.

Apple faces one of the largest ever patent-infringement verdicts if a jury award of $625.5 million is upheld. The company is appealing after being found guilty of violating three patents owned by small tech company Mirror Worlds.

eBay got slapped Tuesday with a $3.8 billion patent infringement lawsuit over its payment system technology. XPRT Ventures alleges inthe suit that eBay and its subsidiaries PayPal, Bill Me Later, Shopping.com and StubHub violated six of its patents.

AstraZeneca shares surged by almost 9% Tuesday after the company scored a win in court regarding the patent for its cholesterol treatment, Crestor. The ruling means that AstraZeneca won't have to worry about generic competition for its multibillion-dollar statin until 2016.

Nokia, the Finnish cell-phone giant, filed a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, claiming that Steve Jobs & Co. haven't paid up for technology used in Apple's hugely successful iPhone. Filed in Federal District Court in Delaware, the suit involves patents for technologies including GSM, UMTS and...