<IT WORLD> Nexus in eye of patent
storm By Martin J
Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - The wrapper is
barely off Google's new Nexus 7 tablet and the
company is already attracting patent infringement
claims from rivals. Finnish handset-maker Nokia
claims that the Nexus takes advantage of WiFi
technology covered by its own patents. A Nokia
spokesperson said the company "has more than 40
licensees, mainly for its standards essential
patent portfolio, including most of the mobile
device manufacturers. Neither Google nor Asus is
licensed under our patent portfolio."
It
is unlikely that Nokia will adopt Apple's heavy
handed approach by filing a patent infringement
claim; more likely the company will request that
Google and Asus obtain the proper licenses.
Apple meanwhile has wasted no time in
developing a rival tablet
that will come in the
shape of a smaller, cheaper iPad.
An
appeal by Samsung against Apple's newly secured
ban on Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in the US was
rejected by a US court this week. The South Korean
company is frustrated by the outcome in favor of
Apple, which sold 13.6 million iPads in the first
quarter, compared with 1.6 million Samsung
tablets, giving it a 7.5% market share.
"Samsung is disappointed with the court's
decision that denied our motion to stay [the ban].
We believe today's ruling will ultimately reduce
the availability of superior technological
features to consumers in the US," Samsung said.
An Apple patent claim against Taiwanese
smart-phone maker HTC was rejected by a UK
high-court this week. The ruling stated that HTC
did not infringe on Apple's photo management
patent while deeming invalid three other Apple
patent claims for slide-to-unlock, multi-touch and
multilingual keyboard capability.
Following the decision, HTC said, "We
remain disappointed that Apple continues to favor
competition in the courtroom over competition in
the marketplace."
In China, Apple has paid
US$60 million to settle a trademark case with
Shenzhen-based Proview Technology over the use of
the name iPad in the People's Republic. Apple
claimed that it acquired the iPad name in China in
2009 when it bought rights from a Proview
affiliate in Taiwan for around $55,000. A mainland
China court ruling in December found that Proview
Shenzhen, which registered the iPad trademark
there in 2001, was not bound by that sale, even
though it was part of the same company.
With barely enough time to catch a breath
following this dispute Apple has been hit with
another one. A household chemical company called
Jiangsu Xuebao has sued Apple in Shanghai for
allegedly infringing its "Snow Leopard" trademark.
Apple originally used the moniker "Snow Leopard"
for a distribution of Mac OS X in 2009. The
current version is called Mountain Lion.
The Chinese company is seeking about
$80,000 in damages and an official apology from
Apple. The outcome of the Proview case appears to
have set off a digital avalanche from businesses
in China trying to cash in on the world's most
valuable technology company.
Internet Software giant
Microsoft could see its first quarterly loss in 20
years by absorbing a $6.2 billion charge on an
acquisition that failed to generate any revenue
for the company. In its efforts to catch
advertising juggernaut Google, Microsoft bought
Internet advertising company aQuantive Inc in 2007
for around $6.3 billion. The acquisition was the
company's largest until it bought out Skype for
$8.5 billion last year.
A technical loss
in the second quarter is now likely for Microsoft.
Analysts had previously predicted a profit of $5.3
billion.
Microsoft blamed the setback on a
disappointing performance from its advertising
division, which has failed to make a dent in
Google's market share. Since it bought aQuantive,
Microsoft's online division has reported losses
totaling nearly $9 billion. Google on the other
hand earned $9.7 billion on nearly $38 billion in
revenue last year, most of it from advertising.
Google's share of the US search
advertising market has risen to 78% from 74% in
2010. Yahoo's has fallen to less than 5% from 10%
and Microsoft's search advertising market share
has remained at 7%.
Security An
Internet blackout could be looming for thousands
of users next week as malware that may have
infected machines over a year ago attempts to
redirect browsers to fraudulent websites. In an
effort to quash the threat, the US Federal Bureau
of Investigation will shut down temporary DNS
servers that replaced fraudulent servers operated
by hackers. DNS, or distributed naming system,
associates various information with domain names
assigned to each of the participating entities.
The outage will occur for those that are
still infected with the DNSChanger Trojan. A
website has been setup by the FBI to test systems
for infection and offer advice on cleaning the
malware (see here). Following
last year's arrest of six Estonian nationals for
the creation of the malware, the FBI setup clean
temporary Internet servers that would prevent
infected users from losing access to the web once
the DNSChanger botnet was shut down.
The
FBI was initially planning to shut down their
provisional servers in March, but a US district
court ruled that they were to remain operational
until July 9. It is estimated that more than
250,000 computers are still infected and using
rogue servers world-wide.
Martin J
Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent
based in Thailand.
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