September 27, 2010 - In August, MGA Entertainment - the maker of the popular Bratz dolls - accused its rival Mattel of spying on competitors and stealing trade secrets for at least the past 15 years.
Earlier in the battle, Mattel alleged that MGA was stealing its trade secrets by hiring ex-Mattel employees, who then divulged their former employer's trade secrets to their new employer.
September 24, 2010 - International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) were sued in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California, for allegedly infringing U.S. patents belonging to BackWeb Technologies Ltd. The seven patents-in-suit cover methods for transmitting information between a remote network and a local computer and distributed client-based data caching systems.
September 15, 2010 - A Texas-based company called Guardian Location Systems LLC sued AT&T, Sprint Nextel and AT&T for patent infringement, claiming that they infringed its patent on cell phone location tracking.
September 13, 2010 - Oracle Corp. and data management company NetApp have settled their three-year-old mutual patent litigation without prejudice. Each company had claimed that the other was infringing its patents.
August 27, 2010 - Interval Licensing LLC, a patent holding company founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, announced in a press release that it filed suit against AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube.
August 23, 2010 - A Los Angeles-based company called LA Triumph sued Madonna's Macy's-based clothing line for trademark infringement, despite the fact that their trademark on the "Material Girl" name was "abandoned or canceled" and the pop diva's use of the phrase dates back over two decades, to her 1985 hit song.
August 6, 2010 - IDT, eBay and Skype have been in a patent dispute since 2006, and on July 13 of this year, IDT filed a civil antitrust suit against eBay and Skype in federal district court in Arkansas. This week the companies announced that they have settled all of their differences.
July 26, 2010 - Continuing our coverage of qui tam lawsuits over false marking, we report that an organization called Americans for Fair Patent Use (AFPU) filed a false marking lawsuit this month against Apple, Verizon Wireless, Samsung Telecommunications America and Sprint Nextel Corp.
July 21, 2010 - InNova Patent Licensing, a patent holding company and the owner of U.S. Patent No. 6,018,761, hit a bevy of big-name companies with a patent infringement lawsuit.
July 11, 2010 - NTP filed a lawsuit against many of the leading smartphone manufacturers, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Motorola, HTC and LG Electronics.
NTP is suing over infringement of eight of its patents related to wireless email delivery.