March 14, 2013 - In September, an administrative law judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) said in a preliminary ruling that Apple did not infringe certain patents belonging to Samsung. However, the full ITC is now set to review the matter and issue a decision on May 31.
March 5, 2013 - Last week, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh struck more than half of the $1.05 billion damages award Apple Inc. won in its patent suit against Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Judge Koh made the change because of errors in the way the jury calculated damages for 14 of the Samsung devices found to infringe Apple's patents.
March 4, 2013 - After the U.S. Supreme Court found in Gunn et al v. Minton that a legal claim of patent malpractice was not covered by federal law and could be handled by a state court, Motorola Mobility is pushing for Apple's appeal before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to be dismissed on the grounds that the CAFC lacks jurisdiction.
February 20, 2013 - The patent lawsuit between agriculture giant Monsanto and Vernon Hugh Bowman, a 75-year-old soybean farmer, seems to be going Monsanto's way as both the liberal and conservative justices apparently agree with Monsanto.
"Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?" asked Chief Justice John Roberts.
February 14, 2013 - In a Google+ Hangout session, President Obama acknowledged that recent patent reform legislation - while sweeping - didn't go far enough to stop "patent trolls" and in fact "only went about halfway to where we need to go."
"[Patent trolls] are a classic example. They don't actually produce anything themselves," Obama said. "They're just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else's idea and see if they can extort some money out of them."
January 9, 2013 - Steelhead Licensing LLC, a company that owns a patent related to 3G and 4G technology, filed a patent suit against 13 companies that either manufacture mobile phones or provide wireless service. Besides AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Research in Motion (RIM), the other defendants named in the lawsuit are MetroPCS, Motorola, HTC, Kyocera, LG Electronics, Sony, ZTE, NEC Casio Mobile, Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA.
January 9, 2013 - SmartMetric Inc., a company that developed biometric ATM and banking cards for use in protecting the carrier against identity theft, sued Visa and MasterCard for allegedly infringing its patent. A federal court has now scheduled a jury trial in the case for September of this year.
January 7, 2013 - Sling Media, a subsidiary of EchoStar, has filed suit against Monsoon Multimedia and Belkin International for infringement of five Sling Media patents.
Sling Media produces the Slingbox family of products, which allow users to broadcast content from their living room televisions to other locations via Internet-connected PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones.
January 7, 2013 - A federal judge has dismissed a patent infringement suit concerning mobile, folding cafeteria tables.
SICO Inc., a manufacturer of portable folding furniture, was sued in April 2011 by its competitor AmTab Manufacturing Corp. for allegedly infringing U.S. Patent No. 7,758,113. The patent at suit relates to a seat post and support mount design used in folding cafeteria tables.
January 3, 2012 - On December 26, a jury found that Marvell, a California-based semiconductor company, had infringed two patents belonging to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The jury awarded $1.17 billion in damages to CMU.