October 12, 2012 - A patent suit over an iPhone and Android app called Speak for Yourself, which helps nonverbal people communicate, has been settled. The plaintiffs were Semantic Compaction Systems and Prentke Romich Company, who are the patent owner and licensee of patents related to a keyboard with keys that dynamically change.
September 27, 2012 - Fresh from its defeat by Apple, Samsung faces a patent lawsuit from LG over seven patents on organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs.
OLED technology is used in the screens of mobile phones and tablet PCs because it is lighter, brighter and thinner than LCD screens. LG claims that five of Samsung's products infringe the patents, including the Galaxy Tab 7.7, the Galaxy S3 phone and the Galaxy Note "phablet."
September 12, 2012 - A Memphis-based company called B.E. Technology LLC sued Facebook and LinkedIn for infringing U.S. Patent No. 6,628,314 by delivering targeted ads according to demographics. The plaintiff sued Amazon for infringing a different patent, No. 6,771,290, by serving up ads in Kindle devices "in a personalized manner."
September 11, 2012 - The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict that will require Vita-Mix Corp., a Cleveland-based manufacturer of blenders, to pay almost $24 million in damages and enhanced penalties to its rival K-Tec Inc.
September 6, 2012 - Hologic Inc., a Bedford, Mass. company that develops diagnostic, imaging and surgical products for women's health, lost a patent lawsuit it was involved in against London-based Smith & Nephew. The jury in the case awarded the plaintiff $4 million in damages for lost profits.
August 28, 2012 - The New York Times is at the forefront of a group of various types of companies that are fighting the same patent infringement claim. The Times is just one of many companies sued by Helferich Patent Licensing (HPL) for allegedly infringing a patent on sending text messages with Web links to mobile phones.
August 9, 2012 - In a dramatic turn of events for BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM), the judge in its patent litigation with Mformation Technologies granted RIM's motion for a judgment as a matter of law and vacated the $147.2 million damages award.
August 3, 2012 - SAP agreed to pay $306 million in damages to its competitor Oracle Corp. in order to avoid a new trial over copyright infringement. Under the agreement, which requires court approval to finalize, SAP has also paid Oracle $120 million in legal fees.
In 2010, a jury determined that SAP's now-defunct subsidiary TomorrowNow was liable for copyright infringement for wrongfully downloading millions of Oracle files related to its business management software.
August 2, 2012 - A federal jury in St. Louis awarded Monsanto Co. $1 billion based on its verdict that DuPont willfully infringed a Monsanto patent on herbicide-resistant seeds.
July 31, 2012 - Yesterday ten jurors were chosen to hear the much-awaited trial between Apple and Samsung. The patent infringement lawsuit centers on Samsung's alleged infringement of at least 17 patents related to the iPad and other Apple products, and Apple's alleged infringement of five Samsung patents.