June 28, 2010 - Just a few weeks after calling Microsoft a "patent troll," Salesforce.com has responded in kind by filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft over five of its patents, claiming in the complaint that the “risk of infringement was either known or so obvious that it should have been known by Microsoft
June 24, 2010 - Google Inc. just announced that its Google Voice VoIP service will be made available to the public, and they have already been hit with a patent infringement lawsuit.
Frontier Communications Corp. contends that Google is infringing its newly-issued patent on enhanced telephone services, and that Google's VoIP service will cause Frontier "irreparable damage."
June 23, 2010 - We've blogged about false marking lawsuits at length, especially Pequignot v. Solo Cup Co. That false marking case could have cost Solo Cup Co. $5.4 trillion dollars, but ended up being dismissed.
June 11, 2010 - Motorola, Inc. and Research in Motion Limited (RIM) announced in a press release that they have settled all of their patent disputes worldwide.
The settlement involves a mutually beneficial, long-term cross-licensing agreement between the two companies, covering technologies such as 2G, 3G, 4G, 802.11 and wireless email.
Motorola and RIM will transfer certain patents to each other, and RIM will pay an upfront payment and ongoing royalties to Motorola.
June 10, 2010 - Rambus Inc. has an October 7 court date with Micron and Hynix, the company said on June 9.
June 8, 2010 - Gibson Guitar Corp. has settled with Viacom Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and retailers such as Amazon.com Inc., Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. over the "Rock Band" video game.
Guitar-maker Gibson claimed that the music video game infringed its patent on a method of using a musical instrument to perform in a simulated concert.
June 7, 2010 - A Swiss company called Starhome GmbH filed a patent infringement lawsuit against AT&T and T-Mobile in U.S. District Court in Delaware on May 25, alleging that the companies infringe Starhome's patents related to easy access to voice mail when the mobile phone service subscriber is abroad.
June 2, 2010 - After Microsoft sued Salesforce.com for patent infringement, Salesforce's CEO Marc Benioff referred to the software giant using the familiar derogatory term "patent troll".
May 24, 2010 - A company called San Francisco Technology Inc. filed a false marking lawsuit against Delta Faucet and 13 other, unrelated companies for using expired patent numbers on their products.
The type of lawsuit San Francisco Technology filed is called a qui tam lawsuit, which means a lawsuit that any citizen can bring on behalf of the government.
May 12, 2010 - On April 28, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office informed Canadian software company i4i of its intent to issue an ex parte reexamination certificate on the patent the company successfully sued Microsoft for infringing - and all the patent's claims were confirmed. With the patent's validity upheld, Microsoft is running out of options and will likely petition the Supreme Court to take the case.