October 17, 2011 - Eastman Kodak Company announced that it licensed about 100 patents related to laser projection to IMAX Corporation. The licensing deal, worth about $50 million in upfront fees and additional royalties, will help Kodak raise cash in an attempt to improve its financial condition.
October 17, 2011 - Lucent-Alcatel sued online retailers Newegg Inc. and Overstock.com, Inc. (O.co) for infringing three patents related to e-commerce functionalities that are used by almost every e-commerce website. However, Newegg and Overstock enjoyed unexpected success when a federal jury in the U.S.
October 4, 2011 - In a new twist for the mobile electronics industry, Apple has refused to talk patent licensing with its competitor, Samsung - and will thus block the launch of Samsung's Galaxy Tab mobile computing device in Australia.
Samsung's Galaxy products have been found to infringe Apple's patents. Normally, that would mean that Samsung could take a license under the patents and continue to do business.
September 30, 2011 - Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC, a Delaware-based company, filed a flurry of patent infringement lawsuits against branches of major hotel chains including Hyatt Corporation, Marriott Hotels, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ramada Inn, Best Western, Days Inn, Super 8 Hotels, and Travelodge - in all, more than 220 individual hotels in Illinois.
September 21, 2011 - One of the largest jury awards in the country this year was handed to Medtronic Inc. in its patent lawsuit against rival NuVasive. A jury awarded Medtronic $101 million, which may go higher since it only covers damages through the summer of 2010.
The patents that the jury found NuVasive infringed are owned by Warsaw Orthopedic Inc., a unit of Medtronic, and cover spine devices.
August 30, 2011 - Lodsys, LLC, which went from unknown to notorious by suing several iOS app developers for patent infringement, is now attempting to keep Apple from getting involved in that litigation.
August 29, 2011 - Once it has returned from its month-long recess, the Senate is expected to hold a vote September 6 on whether to pass the House's version of the America Invents Act, which passed in June.
But some tech industry groups fear that the legislation will "do little to divert money away from patent litigation and toward innovation," according to a Reuters article published on Insurance Journal.
August 25, 2011 - Verizon may ask the Obama administration to step in and stop the patent war between smartphone manufacturers from interfering with the importation of wireless handsets to the U.S., according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
August 16, 2011 - A federal judge has ruled that although Christian Louboutin's red-soled shoes "flaunt a glamorous statement that pops out at once" when worn on red carpets and runways, the shoe designer cannot prevent competitor Yves Saint Laurent from making shoes with scarlet outsoles.
August 15, 2011 - Google has filed a reexamination request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in an effort to stop Lodsys' lawsuits against app developers for the Android OS.
"We believe [the patents] should never have been issued," Google senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker said in an article on Wired.com. "Developers play a critical part in the Android ecosystem and Google will continue to support them."