In a brief statement Wednesday, Pearson said that Penguin has reached a “comprehensive agreement with the U.S. State Attorneys General and private class plaintiffs to pay $75 million in consumer damages plus costs and fees to resolve all antitrust claims relating to e-book pricing.”

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This week, Apple — ignoring a federal judge’s request that it reduce the number of infringements in its second patent suit against Samsung — requested permission to add the Korean company’s latest marquee phone, the Galaxy S4, to a list of 22 devices it believes infringes on its patents. But, so as not to raise the court’s ire, it proposed a swap. If the court approves its request, “Apple will eliminate (without prejudice) one of the Accused Products named herein, so that it will continue to accuse only 22 products of infringement at this stage of the litigation.”

In other words, Apple is proposing a sort of “one in, one out” accused-product policy as a means of dragging Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone into the suit.

Not a bad strategy, given the commercial significance of the device, though it remains to be seen if the court will agree to it after encouraging both companies to limit and simplify their lists of accused products.

Samsung, too, has submitted a list of 22 products — one that essentially spans Apple’s entire portfolio. So there’s a lot at stake here when the case finally goes to trial in March of 2014.

Below, both companies’ lists of accused products:

Apple

1. Admire
2. Captivate Glide
3. Conquer 4G
4. Dart
5. Exhibit 2 4G
6. Galaxy Nexus
7. Galaxy Note
8. Galaxy Note 10.1
9. Galaxy Note II
10. Galaxy Player 4.0
11. GalaxyPlayer 5.0
12. Galaxy Rugby Pro
13. Galaxy SII
14. Galaxy SII Epic 4G Touch
15. Galaxy SII Skyrocket
16. Galaxy S III
17. Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
18. Galaxy Tab 8.9
19. Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
20. Illusion
21. Stratosphere
22. Transform Ultra

Samsung

1. iPhone 3G
2. iPhone 3GS
3. iPhone 4
4. iPhone 4S
5. iPhone 5
6. iPad
7. iPad 2
8. iPad 3
9. iPad 4
10. iPad mini
11. iPod touch (fifth generation)
12. iPod touch (fourth generation)
13. iPod touch (third generation)
14. MacBook Air
15. MacBook Pro
16. iMac
17. Mac mini
18. Mac Pro
19. iTunes
20. iCloud
21. Apple TV (third generation)
22. Apple TV (first generation)

Google had argued that Apple was overstepping its bounds by demanding such information from a third party to the case, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal disagreed. He ordered Google to comply with Apple’s request, gave the company two days to do so and teased the search behemoth for complaining that the request was burdensome in the first place.

Said Grewal, “The court cannot help but note the irony that Google, a pioneer in searching the Internet, is arguing that it would be unduly burdened by producing a list of how it searched its own files.”

As Google loves to say, “Open always wins” …

Apple certainly views it that way.

On Wednesday the company filed a brief opposing Google’s participation in a joint amicus brief submitted earlier in the week by HTC, Red Hat, SAP and Rackspace. That brief argued, essentially, that highly complex devices like smartphones shouldn’t be subject to sales bans because they use “trivial patented features.” In opposing it, Apple takes no issue with that argument or with the intentions of HTC, SAP, Red Hat or Rackspace in submitting it. But it objects to Google acting as lead party on a brief in a case in which it has an obvious interest.

“Google is the developer of the Android operating system running on the Samsung smartphones that Apple seeks to enjoin in this case,” Apple wrote in its opposition. “That interest conflicts with the traditional role of an amicus as an impartial friend of the court — not an adversary party in interest in the litigation.”

Apple’s view, then, is that Google is more co-defendant in this case than anything else, and it shouldn’t be allowed to masquerade as an impartial, concerned party.

And for the iPhone maker to flat out state that is worth noting. Because since these lawsuits first began, Apple has gone out of its way to avoid attacking Google head on.

Not that this is an attack; it certainly isn’t. But it is something of a challenge.

Apple’s implication is clear: If Google’s got something to say about the case, it should join it.

An interesting bit of messaging from Cupertino, which to date has been suing Android licensees as proxies through which to strike at Google.

The jury found the networking company guilty of “fraud by concealment” in its dealings with XpertUniverse. It also found that Cisco violated two of the smaller company’s patents, awarding additional damages to XpertUniverse of about $34,000.

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Advocates for disabled Americans have declared that companies have a legal obligation to make their websites as accessible as their stores, and they’ve filed suits across the country to force them to install the digital version of wheelchair ramps and self-opening doors.

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On Wednesday, the digital rights management pioneer slapped Apple with a broad patent infringement suit that encompasses most of its products and services.

Filed in federal court in Northern California, the suit alleges infringement of 15 Intertrust patents across everything from iOS and Mac hardware to services like iTunes and iCloud. It was brought against Apple after the two companies failed to reach a licensing agreement. And Intertrust is taking Apple to the mat in a pretty big way. Not only does the suit seek preliminary and permanent injunctions against further infringement and a reasonable royalty for Apple’s continued use of Intertrust technology, it requests pre- and post-judgment interest on those royalties and a judgment of willful infringement. Such a judgment would triple damages levied against Apple.

“No other entity uses Intertrust technologies so extensively at so many levels of its enterprise,” the company said in its suit.

Intertrust is not messing around. And while this is clearly yet another case of royalty negotiation though litigation, it’s not one to be taken lightly. Intertrust may not be a household name, but the companies that license its technology include Sony, Samsung, HTC, Motorola and Microsoft. The last name in that list is the most important one, because Microsoft — like Apple — refused to license Intertrust’s IP. Intertrust sued Microsoft in 2001, and in 2004 it squeezed a $440 million legal settlement and licensing deal out of the software giant.

Which is not to say that Intertrust is likely to win a similar victory over Apple. Just that it has prevailed in cases like these in the past. If Apple has refused to license Intertrust’s IP, it obviously has good reason to do so. It’s just not clear if it feels it owes Intertrust lower royalties than the company is demanding, or none at all.

Apple declined comment on the Intertrust suit, citing its policy of not commenting on pending litigation.

Joshua Rosenkranz, the partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe who represented Facebook in its battle with the Winklevoss twins over their ownership stake and is currently representing Apple in its dispute with Google over the iPhone and iPad touchscreen patents, is now also helping to defend Kleiner, according to court documents.

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Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

A U.S. District Judge on Wednesday ordered Cook to sit for four hours of deposition in the suit, which alleges Apple and five publishers colluded to raise digital prices in an attempt to thwart Amazon’s practice of discounting e-book best sellers.

Apple, which has dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to depose Cook as a “fishing expedition,” had argued that Cook’s testimony wouldn’t add anything new to the case. It claimed there is no need for Cook to testify since he wasn’t named in the original complaint, nor has he been mentioned by any publisher witness involved in the case.

But U.S. District Judge Denise Cote disagreed. While the government’s complaint didn’t mention Cook, it did refer to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. And now that Jobs has passed away, Cote believes Cook should sit for the questions Jobs would have had to answer. Said Cote, “Because of that loss [of Jobs], I think the government is entitled to take testimony from high-level executives within Apple about topics relevant to the government case.”

Now that Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette have all settled with the government, Apple is the last man standing in this suit, which it has been fighting tooth and nail.

As the company said when the DOJ first filed charges: “The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.”

The Joy of Tech

That’s what U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh had to say last month about a second patent suit Apple had brought against Samsung. Now, less than a month later, she appears to have reconsidered her position — with a caveat or two.

Late Friday, Koh ruled that Apple’s second suit against Samsung — this one involving alleged infringement of a group of patents, including one related to the company’s Siri voice search technology — can move forward.

Evidently, Koh decided there’s little to gain by postponing Apple’s second suit against Samsung until an appeals court renders a decision on the first. What she did decide was that the case would benefit from a little streamlining. In her ruling, Koh told both companies to “significantly” reduce the scope of the case by trimming down its claims and expert witness testimony.

Welcome news for Apple, which had been pushing aggressively for the case to proceed, arguing that postponing it was injurious to its business. “This case must proceed now in order to stop the ongoing sales — and relentless launch — of Samsung’s latest infringing devices, which have caused, and every day continue to cause, continuing harm to Apple,” the company said in its argument against postponement.

The case is scheduled to go to trial in March of 2014.

A U.K. court on Thursday sided with Apple in a patent infringement suit brought against it by Samsung, dropping the hammer on the South Korean company’s effort to bust the iPhone maker for infringement.

At issue in this case were a trio of standards-essential patents (SEPs) covering the transmission of data over 3G networks. Samsung had asserted them against Apple in the U.K. — and elsewhere — in the hope of squeezing it for royalties on the company’s 3G-capable devices. But Judge Christopher Floyd rebuffed Samsung’s claims, ruling all three patents-in-suit invalid.

Floyd’s ruling further undermines Samsung’s already dubiously shaky campaign to assert its standards-essential IP against Apple in the pair’s endlessly metastasizing legal battle. To date, Apple has prevailed against about two dozen of the SEPs with which Samsung has attacked it.

Samsung, as I noted above, was dismayed by Floyd’s decision and rolled out what has become an old chestnut of a statement for times like this: “We are disappointed by the court’s decision. Upon a thorough review of the judgment, we will decide whether to file an appeal.”

Little wonder, then, that Samsung’s lobbying spend is increasing dramatically. In 2011, the company spent $150,000 on lobbying. In 2012? $900,000 — a 600 percent spike. Samsung says its expanded lobbying efforts are simply part of “day-to-day business operations,” an apt explanation for a company whose day-to-day “operations” include a brutal, ongoing patent battle with Apple. These days, litigation seems part and parcel of the smartphone business. Certainly, that’s true for both Samsung and Apple.

Speaking of Apple, the iPhone maker’s lobbying spend actually decreased in 2012, though it still far exceeded Samsung’s. Apple spent $2 million on U.S. lobbying last year, down 13 percent from the year prior.

Dish Network alleged that the sports broadcaster violated an eight-year broadcast licensing agreement by offering more favorable rates to the satellite provider’s competitors. The agreement is set to expire later this year.

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The agreement brings an end to an unusual lawsuit brought last month by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on behalf of the New York State Common Retirement Fund. The lawsuit sought to force the wireless-technology company to disclose what it spends on political causes.

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A Mannheim Regional Court on Friday ordered a stay of a Samsung suit against Apple that alleges the iPhone maker’s VoiceOver screen-access technology violated its patent on display into speech data.

The mechanics of this particular spat and the court’s ruling on it are a bit too byzantine to dive into here, but it’s worth a look in broad strokes simply as an example of just how low players are willing to stoop in IP battles like the one between Apple and Samsung. So, in short: Samsung holds a patent on a feature that allows devices to read text aloud to their users with the press of a button. The company asserted that patent against Apple’s accessibility features, specifically VoiceOver which is specifically designed for anyone with impaired vision. Caught in the middle: The blind, low-vision users, folks with dyslexia and anyone else who might benefit from having what appears on their computer screen described to them out loud.

Yes, this move by Samsung against Apple was a tactical one in a nasty battle in which billions of dollars are at stake. Yes, it’s just business. But it’s ill-conceived. Even leaving aside the ethics of asserting a patent against a feature designed to help the blind, this is unwise. It’s the PR equivalent of punching yourself in the face. Samsung has now identified itself as a company willing to accept the loss of accessibility for the vision-impaired as collateral damage in its battle with Apple. It has made a big public move to make it more difficult for the blind to use computers. That’s just foolish — more so, now that the judge presiding over the case has stayed the suit. Again, this is just business and battle, but there’s a PR war being fought here, as well. And Samsung is not doing itself any favors with poorly thought-out assaults like this one.

Reached for comment, Samsung offered a boilerplate statement on the larger IP battle. “For decades, we have heavily invested in pioneering the development of technological innovations in the mobile industry, which have been constantly reflected in our products,” a company spokesman told AllThingsD. “We continue to believe that Apple has infringed our patented mobile technologies, and we will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights.”

A lawyer for Greenlight said the proposal improperly “bundles” three measures in violation of securities rules and said shareholders like the hedge-fund firm should be allowed to vote on the measures separately.

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In the response, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Wednesday, Apple said the proxy proposal does not improperly bundle several provisions together, as Greenlight alleges. The filing states that bundling only occurs when “discrete, material proposals are combined in a manner that puts shareholders to an unfair choice.”

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Last year, several Facebook investors sued the company, arguing that Facebook — which had shared internal financial forecasts with certain analysts before the IPO — was also obligated to disclose those projections in regulatory filings.

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“Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.”
– Google CEO Larry Page

If the driving motivation behind Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility truly was the company’s patent arsenal, the search behemoth isn’t seeing much return on its investment.

This week, Google’s Motorola Mobility division was dealt yet another setback in its ongoing intellectual property spat with Microsoft, when a judge gutted some of the patent claims it had asserted against the software company.

On Thursday in Seattle, U.S. District Judge James Robart issued an order invalidating more than a dozen claims across three patents Google asserted against Microsoft. All three patents cover technology related to the encoding and decoding of digital video, and while Robart determined some of their claims to be legitimate (for now), he found that 13 were not specific enough to be brought to bear in this case.

And so he granted Microsoft’s motion for partial summary judgment, tossing those 13 claims. Robart’s decision significantly narrows the case, and bodes well for Microsoft, which claims that Google has failed to make the patents at issue available on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.