On Monday, a U.S. International Trade Commission judge ruled one of Kodak’s key patents invalid, undermining the photography pioneer’s efforts to assert it against Apple and Research In Motion. In his decision, ITC Judge Thomas Pender wrote that while some Apple and RIM products did indeed violate some claims of Kodak’s 6,292,218 patent, the patent itself, which covers the ability for a digital camera to preview images on an LCD screen, is invalid.

The ’218 patent is referred to by some as the “crown jewel” of Kodak’s portfolio, so Pender’s ruling is potentially a major blow to the company, which is looking to maximize the value of its IP ahead of a bankruptcy auction. Indeed, just last week Kodak accused Apple of attempting to undermine its efforts by asserting ownership claims over the ’218 patent.

“Apple’s decision to press its ownership claims now … should be seen for what it is, namely, a ploy calculated to prevent the debtors from using the [bankruptcy] sale process to obtain a fair price for Kodak’s digital capture portfolio (or to enable Apple to buy it on the cheap and extinguish its infringement exposure),” Kodak said in court documents filed last week.

It seems now that the ploy was a wasted effort. There are few better ways of extinguishing a company’s infringement exposure than having the patent asserted against it ruled invalid. And, as RIM noted in a statement issued Monday afternoon, Pender is the second ITC judge to rule the ’218 patent invalid.

That said, Apple and RIM aren’t entirely out of the woods yet. Kodak plans to appeal Pender’s ruling to the full commission. And it says it’s confident it will prevail in the end, since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office confirmed ’218’s validity in 2010.

Regardless, Pender’s ruling couldn’t come at a worse time. Sources say that Kodak has been looking to attract a stalking-horse bidder who would put down an initial offer for its patent portfolio as it gears up for its bankruptcy auction. Having the patent that’s at the center of its high-profile battle with Apple and RIM tossed aside by the ITC isn’t going to aid that effort.

This patent dispute, one of several between the companies, centers on Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology. Ultimately, the ruling could lead to the ban of imports of Motorola products that infringe on the patent in question.

“Microsoft sued Motorola in the ITC only after Motorola chose to refuse Microsoft’s efforts to renew a patent license for well over a year,” Microsoft deputy general counsel David Howard said in a statement. “We’re pleased the full Commission agreed that Motorola has infringed Microsoft’s intellectual property, and we hope that now Motorola will be willing to join the vast majority of Android device makers selling phones in the U.S. by taking a license to our patents.”

The ITC issued an initial finding of infringement in this case back in December.

Motorola, for its part, notes that it can continue shipping products during a 60-day presidential review process and said it will ponder its options. It also noted that Microsoft had originally sought a ruling that Motorola had infringed on nine patents.

“Although we are disappointed by the Commission’s ruling that certain Motorola Mobility products violated one patent, we look forward to reading the full opinion to understand its reasoning,” Motorola said in a statement. “We will explore all options including appeal.”

Motorola said it will be required to post a 33-cents-per-unit bond for products it ships during the 60-day review period.

This dispute is separate from other conflicts between the two companies, including one related to Microsoft’s Xbox. Motorola has won an initial ruling it its favor from the ITC in that case.

“The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order,” HTC said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get these products into their hands as soon as possible.”

HTC has been in a patent battle with Apple, which won an exclusion order late last year for certain HTC phones.

The HTC One X is bound for AT&T, while the HTC Evo 4G LTE is headed to Sprint and was due to go on sale on Friday.

Sprint declined to comment beyond HTC’s statement. An AT&T spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

HTC has been counting on its One line (along with the Evo for Sprint and a new Droid Incredible model for Verizon) to help it regain its footing.

Apple had asked the commission to block imports of Motorola phones such as the Droid and Droid X that run Google Inc.’s Android software, claiming they infringed on its patents.

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The organization found that HTC devices infringed on two claims related to an Apple patent. However, the ban will not take effect until April, the ITC said in a ruling, giving time for carriers to make transition plans and for HTC to demonstrate ways it has avoided infringement (by working around the patent, dropping infringing features or other means).

“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 importation of infringing personal data and mobile communications devices and related software,” the agency said. “The Commission has determined that exclusion of articles subject to this order shall commence on April 19, 2012.”

HTC will be able to import some refurbished products to satisfy repair claims on already sold products, but will not be able to bring new products into the country after April 19, unless the ruling is reversed or it can show its products no longer infringe the patent in question.

The ruling had been delayed several times.

HTC said in a statement that it was pleased the commission reversed a ruling that said HTC infringed on another of Apple’s patents, and that it narrowed the ruling on the patent in which it did find infringement.

“While disappointed that a finding of violation was still found on two claims of the ’647 patent, we are well prepared for this decision, and our designers have created alternate solutions for the ’647 patent,” HTC said.

Apple didn’t comment directly on Monday’s ruling, instead merely reiterating a past statement that “we think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Here’s the ruling:

Usitc Ruling Apple Htc

The International Trade Commission in Washington on Wednesday is expected to rule on whether some phones made by HTC Corp. violate Apple’s patents. The ruling could lead to a ban on handsets sold by the Taiwanese company, which uses the Android operating system and is the No. 3 smartphone provider in the U.S. market, according to research firm Nielsen.

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The ITC had been scheduled to issue its decision on the matter tomorrow, but on Monday said it would delay it until December 14. So it will be another nine days before we see a final verdict in the case.

If the ITC rules in Apple’s favor and determines that HTC’s Android smartphones violate the four patents at issue on the case, it could ban their importation. And that would be a nasty setback for HTC, which might then miss out on the lucrative holiday shopping season.

A victory for HTC, on the other hand, could set the stage for a settlement with Apple, which was recently vindicated in another ITC case in which it was accused of violating the patents of HTC’s S3 Graphics unit.

“Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International Trade Commission has determined that no violation of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. § 1337) has been shown in the above-captioned investigation and that the investigation is terminated,” according to the ruling, which was posted by the Web site FOSS Patents.

Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC had scooped up S3 in hopes of strengthening its patent position against Apple, which has its own complaint against HTC before the U.S. trade body. A ruling in that case is expected next month, FOSS Patents said.

In a statement to AllThingsD, HTC said it was disappointed: “While the outcome is not what we hoped for, we will review the ruling once the commission provides it and will then consider all options, including appeal.”

The ITC had previously narrowed the scope of HTC’s case against Apple with regards to the S3 patents. HTC said that the ITC last week launched a new investigation based on a separate patent complaint filed by S3.

The battle between HTC and Apple is just one of many skirmishes dotting the mobile landscape, a battlefield that includes disputes between Oracle and Google, and Microsoft and Motorola, to name just a few.

Microsoft, which has accused Motorola Mobility of infringing seven of its patents, is out for blood, seeking an injunction from the ITC that would bar imports of certain of Motorola’s phones. “Microsoft is one of the world’s most innovative companies and we have a responsibility to our employees, customers, partners and shareholders to safeguard our intellectual property,” David Howard, deputy general counsel for litigation at Microsoft, said in a statement given to AllThingsD. “Motorola is infringing our patents and we are confident that the ITC will rule in our favor.”

If it does, that’s bad news not just for Motorola Mobility, but for Google as well. Last week the search giant agreed to pay $12.5 billion for the company in a move it said was intended to protect its Android mobile OS from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, among other companies. So Motorola, too, is posturing, slagging Microsoft as a bully and touting the strength of its own patent arsenal.

“We are vigorously defending ourselves against Microsoft’s patent attack business strategy,” Motorola said in a statement. “We have also brought legal actions of our own in the U.S. and in Europe to address Microsoft’s large scale of infringement of Motorola Mobility’s patents.”

Litigation like this seems a heavy-handed way to hammer out a licensing deal, but realistically that’s what’s likely going on here. We’ll find out if it was successful in late 2011, early 2012. An initial determination in the case is set to be issued in November and a final judgment is expected in March 2012.

The agency, which has the power to block imports, said Tuesday that it will review Apple’s claim that the Taiwanese company’s Flyer tablet and a dozen or so of its Android smartphones violate five of its patents.

The ITC’s move to review the complaint follows a July decision which found that the company had violated two of 10 patents Apple asserted against it in a March of 2010 complaint.

So a tough break for HTC, though the company continues to profess its innocence and insists it has been unjustly persecuted by Apple.

“HTC respects intellectual property and will continue to protect and defend its protected innovations,” Grace Lei, the company’s general counsel, said in a statement. “We will fully cooperate with the ITC’s investigation and look forward to showing that we are not in violation of any of Apple’s patents.”

“If Apple views HTC as one of its major competitors in US market for high end smartphones and leverages these legal tactics to seek royalty payments, this could raise HTC’s cost structure relative to Apple and other Android makers,” Morgan Stanley analyst Jasmine Lu said in a note to clients. “[And that] could adversely affect HTC’s share opportunity if other Android makers are not required to pay the same royalties as HTC in the near future.”

HTC plans to appeal the ruling. But as many an observer has pointed out, preliminary ITC determinations are seldom overturned.

On Friday, the ITC, which has the power to ban the importation of goods into the States, ruled that HTC infringed two of the four patents (originally 10) Apple asserted against it: 5,946,647 and 6,343,263. The first describes a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer,” the second a “real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data.” According to the ITC, HTC has infringed claims 1, 8, 15 and 19 of the ’647 patent and 1, 2, 24 and 29 of the ’263 patent.

Notably, at least one — the so-called ’647 patent — appears to be related to Android, which would effectively make today’s ruling the first to find that Google’s mobile OS infringes on another’s patents. “They are very likely to be infringed by code that is at the core of Android,” says IP expert Florian Mueller. “It’s telling that those two patents are also at issue between Apple and Motorola.”

So obviously, a blow to HTC and potentially to Android as well. If HTC violated ’647, it’s conceivable that other Android manufacturers have as well. That said, it’s important to note that this ruling is still subject to review by the full six-member ITC commission, so it’s far too early to declare a victor. And HTC has already vowed to appeal the determination.

“HTC will vigorously fight these 2 remaining patents through an appeal before the ITC Commissioners who make the final decision,” HTC general counsel Grace Lei said in a statement. “We are highly confident we have a strong case for the ITC appeals process and are fully prepared to defend ourselves using all means possible.”

Google, for its part, doesn’t seem too worried about the ruling. “We’re pleased that the ITC ruled against all of Apple’s operating system patent claims,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We are confident the Commission will ultimately agree with the ITC staff’s finding that HTC does not violate any of Apple’s patents. Litigation that attacks open-source products limits consumer choice, hurts the economy, and discourages innovation.”

This is the second ITC complaint Apple has lodged against HTC, who it has accused of infringing some 20 patents related to the iPhone’s graphical user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The latest complaint hasn’t yet been made public, so it’s not entirely clear what Apple’s up to here. That said, it’s likely to be bolstering its original argument with additional patents, following an April ITC staff recommendation that its allegations against HTC be dismissed. And, of course, it’s another broad warning to the industry. If you’re bringing a new smartphone to market, you had better make damn sure it doesn’t infringe on Apple’s IP.

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a press release announcing its first suit against HTC: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

In a statement, HTC slagged Apple for the sudden escalation of hostilities between them.

“HTC is dismayed that Apple has resorted to competition in the courts rather than the market place,” said general council Grace Lei. “HTC continues to vehemently deny all of Apple’s past and present claims against it and will continue to protect and defend its own intellectual property as it has already done this year.”

Further Reading:

• Apple Sues Nexus One Maker HTC Over iPhone Patents
• Apple Sues HTC [Complete Court Filings]
• Apple vs. Google: Game On

Kodak scored an early win in its ongoing IP skirmish with Apple this week when an International Trade Commission judge found in its favor, ruling that Kodak’s digital camera technology did not infringe upon Apple’s patents.

ITC Judge Robert Rogers said late Thursday that the patents at issue in the case–U.S. Patent No. 6,031,934: “Computer vision system for subject characterization” and U.S. Patent No. RE38,911: “Modular digital image processing via an image processing chain with modifiable parameter controls”–have not been infringed. He also found one to be invalid.

The full ITC still needs to formally accept or reject Rogers’ decision, so this isn’t yet a done deal. But things are certainly looking good for Kodak.

Earlier this year, it sued Apple and Research in Motion claiming the companies are infringing its technology for previewing photos and processing images of different resolutions.

A full ITC Commission decision on that isn’t expected until late June, but if it goes Kodak’s way, the company could be in for a windfall. Kodak Chairman and CEO Antonio Perez has said victory in that case could generate as much as $1 billion in royalties.

$1 billion.

“This is a lot of money, big money,” Perez told Bloomberg, adding that his company “deserves to win.”

Problem is, it lost once already. An ITC judge ruled in January that Apple and RIM didn’t violate the patent at issue here and declared the patent invalid because it’s an obvious variation of an earlier invention.

Now, it’s certainly possible that the commission could overturn that ruling. And, if it does, it’s also possible that it could block imports of the infringing products, which would obviously be a big incentive for both Apple and RIM to settle. That’s what Samsung and LG did when Kodak sued them over the same patent.

But the commission hasn’t overturned the ruling. It hasn’t even decided whether to review it. And even if it does, Kodak itself is facing patent infringement charges from Apple and a suit from RIM challenging the validity of a number of its patents, including the one in the ITC case. Those suits will certainly complicate any potential royalty negotiations.

So it’s a bit premature for Perez to be offering a forecast on patent royalties, though it is doing wonders for Kodak’s share price, which at $3.44 is up about 10 percent on Perez’s bloviating. A nice little pop for a company that lost nearly half its market value last year.

Might want to take a picture of that, Kodak, it will probably last longer.

Nokia, for its part, doesn’t seem much worried by the action. “[We're] confident that all of the 37 patents [we have] asserted against Apple [are valid],” a spokesperson told Bloomberg. “We are examining the filing and will take whatever actions are needed to protect our rights.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Nokia Sues Apple
• Did Nokia Sue Apple Before Apple Could Sue Nokia?
• Nokia’s New Focus Is Mobile Services? Sure It’s Not Lawsuits Against Apple?
• Apple Countersues Nokia for Copying iPhone (Plus Disputed Patents and Full Text of Counterclaim)
• ITC Investigating Nokia Over Apple Patent Complaints and Vice Versa
• Nokia Accuses Apple of “Legal Alchemy.” Stops Short of “Chymistry” and “Heresy.”
• Apple Vs. Nokia: The Battle of Britain

Rambus, whose nominal specialty is designing ways for chips to pass data back and forth but which is better known for more than a decade of bitter legal battles, earlier this month filed a complaint with the ITC, saying that products from several companies contained chips that infringe on its patents.

As anyone who’s been paying attention to the numerous patent battles around smartphones knows, the ITC is generally seen as a fast track to a settlement of a patent dispute. Since federal courts are slow and litigation is expensive, companies often go to the ITC ostensibly to block the import of products found to infringe on patents. Since practically every technology product is built outside the U.S., sales of an infringing product can be subject to an exclusion order, the usual outcome when a violation is found.

What’s interesting is the wide range of companies that Rambus has named in its complaint: Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Nvidia, Broadcom, Seagate, Motorola, Garmin, Asus and Hitachi are among the better known ones. The full list contains 34 companies, including some subsidiaries.

Some of the patents involved in this complaint were the subject of a prior case that Rambus took to the ITC against Nvidia. The commission ruled the patents–known as the Barth family of patents–were valid and issued an exclusion order, prompting Nvidia to come to the table and sign a licensing agreement in August. Rambus is obviously looking for a similar outcome from Broadcom and Freescale, which it says are among those now infringing on the Barth patents.

Additionally there’s another set of patents known as the Dally family, which Rambus didn’t invent but to which it holds a license. The patents are owned by MIT and are based on the work of Bill Dally, a former MIT professor of electrical engineering who’s now at Stanford University. The patents had been licensed exclusively to a small private firm called Velio Communications, where Dally had been CTO and which was acquired by the chip maker LSI Logic in March of 2004.

In a twist that could happen only in the strange world that is patent law, Rambus acquired the exclusive license to Velio’s serial interface patents–the Dally family–in a separate deal in the waning months of 2003. The irony is that LSI is among those being sued for infringing on the Dally patents. Some M&A lawyers at LSI must be kicking themselves today.

Among the phones that Sony alleges are infringing on its technology are the Accolate, Encore, enV Touch, Glance, Lotus Elite, Neon, Quantum and Rumor Touch.

The latest legal challenge adds to an already crowded docket of wireless competitors making patent-related claims. Just a partial list of the court battles has Nokia against Apple, Motorola against Microsoft, Apple against HTC and Oracle against Google.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith predicted last month that the various players will probably agree on some sort of appropriate royalty streams covering modern smartphones. in the meantime, it looks like the lawyers for all the cellphone makers will remain gainfully employed in 2011.

Late Wednesday, its Motorola Mobility subsidiary slapped Microsoft with a lawsuit accusing the company of infringing 16 of its patents in a variety of products– including Windows, Exchange, Messenger, Outlook, Windows Marketplace, Bing Maps and Xbox.

“[We are] bringing this action against Microsoft in order to halt its infringement of key Motorola patents,” Kirk Dailey, corporate VP of intellectual property at Motorola Mobility, said in a statement. “Motorola has invested billions of dollars in R&D to create a deep and broad intellectual property portfolio and we will continue to do what is necessary to protect our proprietary technology.”

Microsoft, for its part, seems largely unfazed by Motorola’s right-back-at-ya maneuver. Indeed, in a statement, Horacio Gutierrez–Microsoft’s deputy general counsel of intellectual property and licensing–essentially said the company was waiting for it. “This move is typical of the litigation process and we are not surprised,” he said. “We remain confident in our position and will continue to move forward with the complaints we initiated against Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and with the International Trade Commission (ITC).”

According to a prehearing examination of the patents at issue in the case by the staff of the U.S. International Trade Commission, Apple hasn’t provided enough evidence to establish a violation of its rights. The ITC’s early read on 13 patents Cupertino has accused Nokia of violating is that some were not violated at all and some aspects of others are invalid.

Now this doesn’t mean that Apple is destined to lose this particular battle; ITC Judge Charles Bullock isn’t obligated to follow his staff’s recommendation. But it is something of a setback for Apple, which has asked the Commission to block the import of Nokia phones into the States.

Monster.com, the online job search hub, has partnered with Indian conglomerate ITC’s e-Choupal initiative, which links farmers to ITC’s agricultural suppliers via Internet kiosks, to launch Rozgarduniya.com (World of Employment), an online recruitment tool for rural Indian jobseekers.

“The aim is to fill a gap in the market,” said Sanjay Modi, managing director of Monster.com India. We do so by providing “a credible rural recruitment method for employers,” he said.

Starting last summer, Indians in villages in four states have been able to access the site through 1,817 e-Choupal internet kiosks where Rozgarduniya is currently operational. Only a small percentage of Indians, either rural or urban, have home Internet connections.

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The U.S. International Trade Commission has announced plans to formally investigate HTC’s allegations that Apple (AAPL) infringed upon its mobile phone patents.

“The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has voted to institute an investigation of certain portable electronic devices and related software,” the ITC announced. “The products at issue in this investigation are portable electronic devices that utilize certain power management methods and may incorporate hardware and software for telephone directories within mobile telephone systems….The complainant requests that the USITC issue an exclusion order and a cease and desist order.”

The agency is already investigating HTC for a similar but broader complaint filed earlier this year by Apple, so this is familiar territory. A decision against either company could see some or all of its phones and mobile devices blocked from import into the U.S., though that seems unlikely.