Huawei leads Asian domination of UN patent applications in 2018

GENEVA -- Chinese telecoms giant Huawei led the pack with Asia accounting for more than half of the international patent applications at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) last year, WIPO said on Tuesday.

Huawei, which has been under pressure since the United States demanded its allies bar Chinese vendors from participating in building 5G networks due to national security concerns, made 5,405 patent applications to the UN body, up from 4,024 in 2017.

"It’s an all-time record by anyone," WIPO director general Francis Gurry told a news conference.

WIPO oversees international treaties governing patents, trademarks and industrial designs. Its annual report on the applications it receives - a subset of all intellectual property filings globally - gives an early snapshot of the trends.

Asia-based filings accounted for 50.5 percent of the total applications received, Gurry said.

"Historically, this is really quite extraordinary," he said. "Historically, this is a momentous occasion, this is something that is really a very, very significant result."

The second-biggest user of the WIPO international patent system in 2018 was Mitsubishi Electric with 2,812 filings, followed by Intel with 2,499.

Although inventors in the United States filed more applications than in any other country, China looks set to take the top place this year or next, after a meteoric rise over the past quarter century.

Having filed only one patent application in the WIPO system in 1993, its applications overtook Japan's in 2017 and grew by a further 9.1 percent to 53,345 in 2018, while the number of US-based filings slipped 0.9 percent to 56,142.

Asia accounted for six of the top eight companies, with China's ZTE Corp and BOE Technology Group and South Korea's Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics also among the leaders.

China also jumped up the academic rankings, with four of its universities making the top ten list for the first time.

While the University of California remained well ahead among educational institutions, with 501 patent applications in 2018, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology was second, Shenzhen University and South China University of Technology leapt into third and fourth spot, just ahead of Harvard.

Gurry said Chinese universities benefited from an extremely strong emphasis on innovation and the commercialization of basic research, as well as access to the world's second largest national pool of research and development spending.

He said China had introduced an equivalent of the US Bayh-Dole Act, ensuring that patents taken out on government-sponsored research were being used, which may have had an influence on Chinese universities' attitude towards commercializing their research.

The WIPO report represents applications for patents, trademarks and designs that their owners feel are valuable enough to protect and promote in overseas markets. Another WIPO report, released in December includes millions of applications for IP protection that are never filed overseas.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Apple infringed three Qualcomm patents, jury finds

Mobile phone chip supplier Qualcomm Inc on Friday won a legal victory against iPhone maker Apple Inc, with a jury in federal court in San Diego finding that Apple owes Qualcomm about $31 million for infringing three of its patents.

Qualcomm last year sued Apple alleging it had violated patents related to helping mobile phones get better battery life. During an eight-day trial, Qualcomm asked the jury to award it unpaid patent royalties of up to $1.41 per iPhone that violated the patents.

The $31 million penalty is small change for Apple, the second most valuable U.S. company after Microsoft Corp, with a market value of $866 billion and annual revenue totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. But the setting of a per-phone royalty rate for Qualcomm's technology gives the chip supplier a fresh line of attack in its two-year old legal battle with Apple.

The biggest case, filed by Apple in early 2017, begins in April. Apple has sought to dismantle what it calls Qualcomm's illegal business model of both licensing patents and selling chips to phone makers. Qualcomm has accused Apple of using its technology without paying.

"The technologies invented by Qualcomm and others are what made it possible for Apple to enter the market and become so successful so quickly," Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm's general counsel, said in a statement. "We are gratified that courts all over the world are rejecting Apple's strategy of refusing to pay for the use of our IP."

In a statement, Apple said it was disappointed with the outcome.

"Qualcomm's ongoing campaign of patent infringement claims is nothing more than an attempt to distract from the larger issues they face with investigations into their business practices in U.S. federal court, and around the world," Apple said. It declined to comment on whether it would appeal.

In other cases against Apple, Qualcomm has won sales bans on iPhones in Germany and China, though the Chinese ban has not been enforced and Apple has taken moves it believes allow it to resume sales in Germany.

Qualcomm also suffered a setback with U.S. trade regulators who found that some iPhones infringed one of the San Diego-based company's patents but declined to bar their importation into the United States, citing the damage such a move would inflict on rival Intel Corp.

The verdict on Friday could come into play in the trial in April because it puts a per-phone dollar figure on some of Qualcomm's intellectual property. Qualcomm's patent licensing model relies on charging phone makers a cut of the selling price of the phone, a practice Apple has alleged is unfair and illegal.

During an earlier trial between Qualcomm and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Apple executives outlined their company's extensive negotiations to reduce those license fees to $7.50 per phone for Qualcomm's patents.

The San Diego jury valued just three of Qualcomm's patents in the company's portfolio at $1.41, a figure that the chip supplier believes bolsters its contention that its licensing practices are fair.

"The three patents found to be infringed in this case represent just a small fraction of Qualcomm's valuable portfolio of tens of thousands of patents," Rosenberg said in a statement.

Gaston Kroub, a patent lawyer in New York not involved in the case, said the verdict was clearly a win for Qualcomm. But it does not say much about the value of Qualcomm's entire patent portfolio and was unlikely to spark settlements discussions, he said.

"Apple is very skilled at handling appeals and taking a longer-term view. This isn't something that will bring Apple to the table with any sense of urgency," Kroub said. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Jury orders Samsung to pay Apple $533 million in iPhone case

SAN JOSE, United States - A federal court jury on Thursday ordered Samsung to pay Apple $533 million for copying iPhone design features in a patent case dating back seven years.

Jurors tacked on an additional $5 million in damages for a pair of patented functions. The award appeared to be a bit of a victory for Apple, which had argued in court that design was essential to the iPhone.

The case was sent back to the district court following a Supreme Court decision to revisit an earlier $400 million damage award. The jury essentially split the difference between Apple's request for $1 billion and Samsung’s argument for $28 million.

To arrive at a damages award of more than a half-billion dollars, jurors would likely have needed to buy into Apple's reasoning that design was so integral to the iPhone that it was essentially the "article of manufacture."

The lower figure sought by the South Korean consumer electronics titan would have involved treating the design features as components.

The jury had been asked to determine whether design features at issue in the case are worth all profit made from Samsung smartphones that copied them or whether those features are worth just a fraction because they are components.

"Samsung isn't saying it isn't required to pay profits," Samsung attorney John Quinn said during closing arguments on Friday.

"It is just saying it isn't required to pay profits on the whole phone."

Apple argued in court that the iPhone was a "bet-the-company" project at Apple and that design is as much the "article of manufacture" as the device itself.

The three design patents in the case apply to the shape of the iPhone's black screen with rounded edges and a bezel, and the rows of colorful icons displayed.

Samsung no longer sells the smartphone models at issue in the case.

Two utility patents also involved apply to "bounce-back" and "tap-to-zoom" functions.

The case dates back seven years. An original trial finding that Samsung violated Apple patents was followed by lengthy appellate dueling over whether design features such as rounded edges are worth all the money made from a phone.

TECHNOLOGY VS STYLE

Samsung challenged the legal precedent that requires the forfeiture of all profits from a product even if only a single design patent has been infringed.

The US Supreme Court in 2016 overturned the penalty imposed on the South Korean consumer electronics giant.

Justices ruled that Samsung should not be required to forfeit the entire profits from its smartphones for infringement on design components, sending the case back to a lower court.

The key question of the value of design patents rallied Samsung supporters in the tech sector, and Apple backers in the creative and design communities.

Samsung won the backing of major Silicon Valley and other IT sector giants, including Google, Facebook, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, claiming a strict ruling on design infringement could lead to a surge in litigation.

Apple was supported by big names in fashion and manufacturing. Design professionals, researchers and academics, citing precedents like Coca-Cola's iconic soda bottle.

The case is one element of a $548 million penalty -- knocked down from an original $1 billion jury award -- Samsung was ordered to pay for copying iPhone patents.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Nokia sues Apple for patent infringement

HELSINKI - Nokia announced Wednesday it was suing Apple in German and US courts for patent infringement, claiming the US tech giant was using Nokia technology in "many" products without paying for it.

Finnish Nokia, once the world's top mobile phone maker, said the two companies had signed a licensing agreement in 2011, and since then "Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple's products."

"After several years of negotiations trying to reach agreement to cover Apple's use of these patents, we are now taking action to defend our rights," Ilkka Rahnasto, head of Nokia's patent business, said in a statement.

The complaints, filed in three German cities and a district court in Texas, concern 32 patents for innovations related to displays, user interface, software, antennae, chipsets and video coding. Nokia said it was preparing further legal action elsewhere.

Nokia was the world's leading mobile phone maker from 1998 until 2011 when it bet on Microsoft's Windows mobile platform, which proved to be a flop. Analysts say the company failed to grasp the growing importance of smartphone apps compared to hardware.

It sold its unprofitable handset unit in 2014 for some $7.2 billion to Microsoft, which dropped the Nokia name from its Lumia smartphone handsets.

Meanwhile Nokia has concentrated on developing its mobile network equipment business by acquiring its French-American rival Alcatel-Lucent.

Including its 2013 full acquisition of joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia said the three companies united represent more than 115 billion euros of R&D investment, with a massive portfolio of tens of thousands of patents.

The 2011 licensing deal followed years of clashes with Apple, which has also sparred with main rival Samsung over patent claims.

At the time, Apple cut the deal to settle 46 separate complaints Nokia had lodged against it for violation of intellectual property.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Samsung to finally pay Apple $548 million in patent dispute

NEW YORK - Samsung fought until the bitter end to avoid paying Apple, but the company now says it will finally hand over the more than $548 million it owes for infringing the patents and designs of its biggest smartphone rival.

In papers filed in federal court in San Jose, California on Thursday, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it will make the payment by Dec. 14 if Apple Inc sends an invoice on Friday.

Asked if it had done so, Apple declined to comment on Friday.

The payment comes after a U.S. appeals court last May reduced a $930 million judgment against Samsung by $382 million, stemming from a 2012 verdict for infringing Apple patents and copying the look of the iPhone.

Another trial over remaining damages relating to some of Samsung's infringing products in the case is set to go ahead next spring.

Even though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. had authorized damages to Apple in May, Samsung again appealed the final figure to the same court, and was rebuffed twice more.

Now agreeing to pay, Samsung told the San Jose court that it expects to be reimbursed if it eventually succeeds in a forthcoming appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over its liability for copying the patented designs of the surface, bezel and user interface of the iPhone, which accounted for $399 million of the total award.

South Korea-based Samsung also said it reserved the right to be reimbursed in the future if a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office invalidating one of the Apple patents in the case, related to touchscreen gestures, is upheld.

Apple intends to appeal that ruling and said in court documents it "disputes Samsung's asserted rights to reimbursement."

"We are disappointed that the court has agreed to proceed with Apple's grossly exaggerated damages claims regardless of whether the patents are valid," a Samsung spokeswoman said in a statement.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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Microsoft, Google stand down in patent battles

NEW YORK - Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. have agreed to bury all patent infringement litigation against each other, the companies announced on Wednesday, settling 18 cases in the United States and Germany.

In another sign of the winding down of the global smartphone wars, the companies said the deal puts an end to court fights involving a variety of technologies, including mobile phones, wifi, and patents used in Microsoft's Xbox game consoles and other Windows products.

The agreement also drops all litigation involving Motorola Mobility, which Google sold to Lenovo Group Ltd last year while keeping its patents.

However, as Microsoft and Google continue to make products that compete directly with each other, including search engines and mobile computing devices, the agreement notably does not preclude any future infringement lawsuits, a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed.

"Google and Microsoft have agreed to collaborate on certain patent matters and anticipate working together in other areas in the future to benefit our customers," the companies said in a joint statement. They did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The companies said they have been cooperating on such issues as the development of a unified patent court for the European Union, and on royalty-free technology for speeding up video on the Internet.

One of the most bitter disputes between the rivals began in 2010 when Microsoft accused Motorola, later acquired by Mountain View, California-based Google, of breaching its obligation to offer licenses to its wireless and video patents used in Xbox systems at a reasonable cost.

In July, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the low licensing rate Microsoft pays to use the patents had been properly set by a federal judge in Seattle.

Wednesday's agreement is not the first among smartphone heavyweights to settle their patent disputes. In 2014, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc. agreed to drop all litigation against one another outside the United States.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Apple to pay $533-M for patent infringement

NEW YORK - Apple Inc has been ordered to pay $532.9 million after a federal jury found its iTunes software infringed three patents owned by Texas-based patent licensing company Smartflash LLC.

Though Smartflash had been asking for $852 million in damages, the verdict, which came late Tuesday night, was still a costly blow for the U.S. tech giant, the most valuable company in the world.

After deliberating for eight hours in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the jury said that Apple not only used the Smartflash patents without permission, but did so willfully.

Apple suggested the outcome was another reason why reform is needed in the patent system to curb litigation by companies that do not make products themselves, such as Smartflash.

"We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system," an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters.

A representative for Smartflash could not immediately be reached.

Smartflash sued Apple in May, 2013 alleging the Cupertino, California-based company's iTunes software infringed its patents related to accessing and storing downloaded songs, videos and games.

The trial was held in Tyler, the hub of the East Texas region, which over the past decade has become a focus for patent litigation in the United States. Some of the biggest jury verdicts have been awarded in the district. Smartflash is also based in Tyler.

Apple tried to avoid a trial by having the lawsuit thrown out. But earlier this month U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, who presided over the case, ruled that the Smartflash's technology was not too basic to deserve the patents.

That ruling set the stage for a trial. Apple argued that it did not infringe the patents and asked the jury to find they were invalid because previously patented inventions covered the same technology.

Smartflash's suit said that around 2000, the co-inventor of its patents, Patrick Racz, met with a man named Augustin Farrugia to discuss the patents' technology. Farrugia, the complaint said, later joined Apple and became a senior director there.

It was also in Tyler federal court that a jury in 2012 ordered Apple to pay $368 million to VirnetX Inc for patent infringement. A federal appeals court later threw out that damages figure, saying it was wrongly calculated.

The case is Smartflash LLC, et al v. Apple, Inc, et al, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, No. 13-cv-447.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com