The Korea Times is reporting this morning that Samsung Electronics has successfully persuaded a U.S. trade panel to rethink its judgment that more than a dozen of its mobile phones and smartphones violated Apple patents. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which specializes in patent disputes, announced Thursday that it has accepted the Korean technology giant's request to review the preliminary ruling made by agency judge Thomas Pender last October that Samsung infringed on four Apple patents. Pender will now review the case with regards to two of the four disputed patents.
The US Patent office published a number of Apple's patent applications today and we covered two of the more interesting ones earlier this morning which covered future Smart Camera features and a patent that Apple acquired from Priceline.com. Yet there were a number of other patent applications that were published today and in this report we provide you with the links to each of them just in case there's something that may be of interest to you. The most notable patent application within this group is one relating to a shoe sensor. If truth be told, Apple was granted this patent way back in 2011. Apple may be slightly tweaking their patent, but it's definitely not new as some would have you believe. Apple's shoe sensor invention relates to a sporting shoe wear-out system that Apple has yet to bring to market that would warn athletes when their running shoe, ski boot and/or soccer cleats were no longer properly supporting their foot so as to avoid injury. The remainder of today's Patent Lint report covers such matters as security, virtual GPUs, telecommunications and much more.
On January 24, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a strange patent application from Apple that was apparently acquired from Priceline's Cofounder Jay S. Walker. Today's patent application 20130024281 titled "Method and Apparatus for Selling Subscriptions to Periodicals in a Retail Environment," is in fact a patent that was first granted to Walker Asset Management Limited Partnership back in 1999. Priceline's Cofounder Jay S. Walker is from Ridgefield, CT, which is confirmed on Apple's patent application. It's also on record that Walker sued Apple back in 2011 and it's very likely that Apple's settlement with Walker may have included Apple gaining today's patent application. The world has changed since 1999 and Apple is selling subscriptions to magazines via iBookstore now. Yet today's acquired patent may have bought Apple a little more Intellectual Property security.
On January 24, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a possible next chapter for Apple's iDevice cameras. In 2011 we posted a controversial patent report titled "Apple working on a Sophisticated Infrared System for iOS Cameras." The report covered how future iDevices could be used as an auto tour guide in a museum and how infrared technology would be able to shut off a future iDevice camera at live events. Today's patent is in that same vein as it focuses on how future iDevice cameras will be able to identify objects such as a painting at a museum or a car at an auto show and provide users with detailed information about these items that could be saved for future reference in multimedia album for later review. Both of Apple's patent applications covering this subject matter would indicate that this is serious camera-related project at Apple.
Apple today announced financial results for its 13-week fiscal 2013 first quarter ended December 29, 2012. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $54.5 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.1 billion, or $13.81 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $46.3 billion and net profit of $13.1 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share, in the 14-week year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38.6 percent compared to 44.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 61 percent of the quarter's revenue.
A new report out of Korea today stated that "Samsung has been widening its lead over Apple as the world's largest provider of smartphones, thanks to a vast lineup of handsets compared to Apple's sole iPhone," and that it's time to move onto challenging RIM, who still holds a considerable market hold on business and government sectors. Samsung believes their investment in Fixmo, a provider of security programs for mobile devices, will assist them in their move against RIM in the coming year. A Samsung executive stated that "Security, communication encryption and application management have become critical in the market for corporate smartphones, so Fixmo is a good fit for us."
In describing the new iPhone 5 back in September, Phil Schiller stated that "It is really easy to make a new product that's bigger. Everyone does that. The challenge is to make it better and smaller." Well, the market didn't necessarily buy into Schiller's assessment and Samsung's Galaxy S3 with its 5" display went on to be a resounding winner this holiday season. But no matter the success, its larger display didn't come close to matching Apple's stunning Retina display quality. So back to the drawing board Samsung went. According to Asian reports this morning, Samsung's engineers have apparently come up with a new display resolution scheme to improve their display for their upcoming Galaxy S4. More specifically, Samsung has developed a diamond shaped pixel layout that will achieve resolutions above 441 pixels per inch and deliver one of the highest resolutions on the market.
At the end of 2012, we missed an important report that Bloomberg Businessweek posted concerning the newly signed US Patent Law Treaties Implantation Act of 2012 – and so we're going to touch on the report's main points for the record today. The new law will be in effect within a year. The main purpose of this new law is to harmonize America's design patent laws with the rest of the world—in particular, by letting "inventors" use a single application filed anywhere in the world to seek design rights in many countries at once. One of Apple's key weapons in its legal battle against competitors is a special type of patent simply called a "design patent," which protects the visual appearance of a product. Vocal critics from the Android camp "have denounced these patents as a way to own 'rounded rectangles', but we may have to get used to seeing a lot more of them," reported Businessweek.
According to a new CNNMoney report, Verizon sold a record number of iPhones in the fourth quarter and could have sold more if it weren't for supply constraints that plagued the iPhone 5 during the quarter. Verizon sold 48% more iPhones than they did a year ago. Half of the sales were for the new iPhone 5. The iPhone still remains the device of choice for customers with two-year contracts on Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T. The nation's largest wireless company said the iPhone made up nearly two-thirds of its smartphones sales last quarter. Even though Verizon's news is nothing but positive, another Wall Street brokerage firm decided to lower their target price on Apple. Apple reports their financial results for Q1 2013 after the markets close tomorrow.
In September Mozilla exited iOS as it retired Firefox Home. Although Firefox reportedly investigated developing Firefox for iOS, it never panned out even though Firefox is available for Android. Frustrated with trying to get Firefox on iOS, Mozilla has decided to take a massive leap forward and introduce Firefox OS to take on Apple's iOS. Their marketing states that their OS enables Open Web standards "to free mobile platforms from the encumbrances of the rules and restrictions of existing proprietary platforms." Hmm, I wonder who they were thinking of with that statement. I'll give you one guess.
According to the UK's Telegraph, research from two sources indicate that Google search fell 3 per cent year-on-year and that growth in its Android mobile operating system may finally be slowing too. Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said, "At the end of 2012 the global OS picture shows Android on top, but clearly the rate of growth it experienced over the past year is beginning to slow as easy wins from first time smartphone buyers begin to reduce." The report also noted that while Android held the number one spot in key world markets including Britain, China, Spain, Australia and Germany, Apple's iOS is still on top in the US and Japan. To review the studies other findings, read the full Telegraph report.
According to the Chinese website called My Drivers which covers IT industry news, a Hon Hai Precision (Foxconn) insider has just revealed one new aspect relating to the next generation iPad 5. According to this source, the iPad 5 is to sport a new design that will adopt narrow bezels and chamfered edge corners. The end result will have the new iPad 5, code named "sapoxx," look more like a magnified iPad mini.
