John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Apple Wins Invalidation of Samsung 3G Patent in Germany

judge_chapmanAnother Teutonic victory for Apple in the company’s interminable intellectual property battle with Samsung.

Germany’s Federal Patent Court — the fantastically named Bundespatentgericht — this week ruled in Apple’s favor in yet another of the pair’s patent disputes. This one involved a mobile technology that Samsung considers essential to the 3G wireless standard, something described as “turbo encoding/decoding device and method for processing frame data according to QoS.” The South Korean company had been seeking injunctions against Apple over this patent. But the Bundespatentgericht declined to grant them, instead invalidating the patent in its entirety.

The Bundespatentgericht didn’t explain the rationale behind the invalidation. But its reasons are likely similar to those of the U.K.’s High Court of Justice, which tossed the same patent last month, arguing that it lacks the priority Samsung claims, and has been rendered invalid by intervening prior art.

Samsung has the option to appeal the Bundespatentgericht’s decision, though it’s not yet clear if it will go that route. A company spokesman says Samsung plans to thoroughly review the decision before taking any further steps. “We will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights,” he said.

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December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

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December 29, 2013 at 2:12 pm PT

BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update

December 29, 2013 at 5:58 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year

December 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm PT

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The problem with the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse has always been that billionaires don’t tend to like the kind of authority-questioning journalism that upsets the status quo.

— Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the promise of Pierre Omidyar’s new media venture with Glenn Greenwald