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For those wanting to review Apple's quarterly numbers in full, Apple's SEC 10-K Filing is now available online. In one area, Apple states that the "Company’s digital content services have faced significant competition from other companies promoting their own digital music and content products and services, including those offering free peer-to-peer music and video services." Apple will be try to remedy some of that problem with iTunes 11 and an all-new online radio service business in the first half of 2013. Then again, Microsoft's new Windows 8 and related mobile devices will be promoting their new Xbox Music service and so iTunes will continue to be under pressure.
Continue reading "Apple's SEC 10-K Filing now Available Online" »

Apple finally gets the Lion trademark, iTunes is delayed due to internal paranoia while Samsung focuses on a new Custom ARM processor and reveals a new tri-fold flexible display smartphone design they have in their labs.
Continue reading "Apple gets Trademark for Lion, Delays iTunes due to Paranoia While Samsung Thinks of a Custom Arm CPU & Flex Displays" »

Late Monday, Apple applied to the court ex parte for an order granting them leave to obtain targeted discovery from Motorola Mobility for use in foreign litigations.
Continue reading "Apple Files Ex Parte Application Seeking Documents from Motorola" »

A Texas based Company by the name of Intercarrier Communications (ICC) has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. The Company claims that Apple's Messages and FaceTime applications found in iOS and OS X infringe on their single patent which they took assignment of for the sole purpose of suing other companies. In the last five days, Intercarrier Communications have filed infringement suits against Apple, MobiWeb, Inerop Technologies, BroadSoft, Iris Wireless and others using the same patent. By definition, Intercarrier Communications looks to be the Patent troll of the week.
Continue reading "Apple's FaceTime & Messages Dragged into Patent Infringement Lawsuit" »

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of twenty-nine newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In today's report we mainly cover Apple's granted patents relating to a future magic mouse for graphics and gaming, touch display technology, Apples Map + Compass app, video editing app Motion and a few design patents that include a strange one titled "AlterNative." Updated 1:36 PM MST
Continue reading "Apple Wins Patents for Touch, Motion, Maps & Strange Icon" »

Major Update 9:30 PM
Continue reading "Scott Forstall Leaving Apple in the New Year" »

Three interesting stories caught our eye this morning and our cover graphic spells them out for you. The last entry in this morning's report is a simple observation on Microsoft's Windows 8 with its new Metro user interface that debuted last week. It's not as scary as it was made out to be, even though it debuted so close to Halloween.
Continue reading "Apple Files for Passbook Icon Trademark, Samsung Loses Apple's Rechargeable Battery Business & the Yacht that Steve Jobs Built Launches" »

While most have yet to hear about a powerful next-generation computer interface called the "Brain Computer Interface" or BCI, it's one that's getting more attention from gaming companies like Secret Exit and Sony who are now actively researching and developing such an interface for current and future gaming. While it`s true that the full potential of this interface is a decade or more away, one famous pioneer in this field foresees a coming Glass war between Apple, Google and others on this very front. Today`s report briefly covers one of the pioneering companies in this field who have just released their latest product called the "Muse." It`s one of the first products that have pushed the BCI into real world games like Zen Bound 2 for Apple`s iPad. While we can't consider this product a Killer App at this point in time for the BCI, it's likely the first of many products to come to market that will pave the way for a big breakthrough in the future. And considering that a luminary in this field is forecasting a war between Apple and Google on this front via Glass-based wearable computers, we thought it was time to bring this technology back into the spotlight once again.
Continue reading "Apple, Google & Others Preparing for the Coming Glass War" »

Last week the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Belkin that describes a few new upcoming iPhone and/or iDevice accessories related to audio. Another accessory is a "camera grip" making it easier to hold the iPhone while taking photos or making a movie. Yet for concert goers, the upcoming Belkin directional/ambient noise microphone iPhone accessory is likely to be a big hit for capturing vastly superior sound on your iPhone concert videos.
Continue reading "Belkin Invents An iPhone Accessory that Concert Goers will Love" »

A Connecticut Company by the name of WhitServe has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. The company states that Apple's Quick Look feature found in OS X Leopard through to Mountain Lion infringes their patent titled "System for sequentially opening and displaying files in a directory."
Continue reading "Apple's Quick Look Feature Allegedly Infringes Connecticut Patent" »

In a bizarre legal twist, Apple has finally posted an apology on their UK Homepage to Samsung as a UK judgment demanded of them. Yet Apple-Legal decided to play by the letter of the law and used it as an opportunity to set the record straight about Samsung copying the iPad design and more. In the end, Apple took a tough situation and turned water into wine. Updated Nov 01, 2012
Continue reading "UK Apology to Samsung Backfires as Apple Sets the Record Straight" »

Beyond our regular ongoing IP news of the day, we present you with the five top stories that caught our eye on October 25, 2012. Our cover graphic spells out what we thought were the most interesting stories of the day and our report will point you to the best sources.
Continue reading "Apple to Enter Online Radio Biz, Reports on Q4 Financials and ITC Rules in Apple's Favor against Samsung" »

On October 25, 2012 the European Patent Office published Apple's trademark filing for "iPad mini," dated October 23, 2012, the very day that Apple introduced it. Apple filed their trademark under three International Classes which covers all of the basics that you'd expect in a trademark filing for the iPad mini, such as computers, notepads, e-book readers, computer software, telecommunications, an MP3 player and the all-important one: proprietary computer software in the field of natural language and voice-print recognition that will naturally support Siri. Yet as usual, Apple legal had to go overboard and cover nonsensical areas, just for a laugh at Happy Hour, I suppose. The iPad mini is now legally covered for possible future uses as a fire extinguisher, a sock heater, and yes, even as an egg-candler. Apple legal even thought of the iPad mini being used as a future "voting machine." Why not? I was hoping for a deep fryer but I was out of luck. If you're a glutton for punishment, then check out the full International Class details laid out in our report.
Continue reading "Apple Files for "iPad mini" Trademark in Europe" »

On October 25, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a new series of patent applications from Apple. Our report reveals information on a new Gimbal Press, details on a new LTE patent and links to many other patents worth checking out today.
Continue reading "Nine Apple Patents Cover a Gimbal Press, LTE Technology & More" »

On October 25, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new universal connector is on the way. Then again, it may already be with us via Apple's new Lighting connector. The illustration in our cover graphic illustrates that the head of the connector will have multiple openings just like today's Lightning connector. There's another major connection between Apple's description of the new connector and today's Lightning connector and our report lays that out. In April 2010 we pointed to Apple's patent covering a new mini tower in the works and Tim Cook confirmed that Apple will be updating the Mac Pro in Q4 2013. This is where this new universal connector will really shine. The new connector on the next generation Mac Pro will likely have a single universal port design that will cover everything from USB, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt. In the end, there may be more to Apple's new Lightning connector than originally thought.
Continue reading "Apple Invents a New Universal Connector that May be Lightning " »

On 5 February 2007, Apple Inc. and Apple Corps announced a settlement of their trademark dispute under which Apple Inc. would own all of the trademarks related to "Apple" and would license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use. The settlement ended the ongoing trademark lawsuit between the companies, with each party bearing its own legal costs, and Apple Inc. would continue using its name and logos on iTunes. The settlement included terms that were confidential, although newspaper accounts at the time stated that Apple Computer was buying out Apple Corps' trademark rights for a total of $500 million U.S. The Canadian IP Office disclosed that the famed Beatles recording label logo is now a registered trademark of Apple Inc.
Continue reading "The Beatles' Apple Corps Logo is now a Registered TM of Apple" »

Apple is being sued for allegedly infringing on a patent filed in 2001 by two professors from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological university in the US. A company by the name of Dynamic Advances, who is now the exclusive licensee of this patent, is the one suing Apple. According to the company, Apple's Siri personal assistant software is clearly infringing upon their patent. Is this case initiated by Dynamic Advances LLC just another greedy Patent troll grab-for-cash, or is it about Dynamic Advances being an IP Defender for the two professors? You be the judge. Update October 25, 2012
Continue reading "Siri Allegedly Infringes on Patent from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professors" »

Three years ago we called for an ultrathin iMac and today Apple delivered it. The new thinner iMac design was mainly accomplished by eliminating the optical drive as they did with their MacBook Air and other MacBooks over time. Yet to be fair to Apple's industrial design team lead by the fanatical Sir Jony Ive, they sweated over the details to refine the LCD process and even used a new welding process called "Friction Stir Welding" in order to get the thinner design just right. And in the heart of this new beast lies an all-new hybrid hard drive that Apple calls a Fusion Drive; a drive that fulfills a 2011 patent application.
Continue reading "Apple Fulfills Patent with the iMac's New Fusion Drive" »

News out this morning points to Apple firing their South Korean manager, the US Patent Office invalidating Apple's rubber-banding patent and a legal professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law weighs in on Apple's reasoning for defending their patents. It's not about the money, it's about principle.
Continue reading "Apple Fires South Korean Manager While a Legal Professor Weighs in on Apple's Reasoning for Defending their Patents" »

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published an incredible series of 34 granted patents for Apple Inc. today. Today's report mainly focuses on three Apple patents. The first one relates to Apple TV which lists Steve Jobs as one of the inventors; the second one relates to an all-new iPhone 3D modeling application that has yet to surface; and the third relates to Apple's eighth patent win for iChat videoconferencing. But as you could imagine, within Apple's 34 granted patents were a few other little gems, and we cover five of them which touch on such matters as LTE, voice commands and Cover Flow. We finalize our report by covering Apple's three industrial design wins and provide you with links to a whopping 24 other patents that you'll be able to explore at will. All in all it was a huge granted patent day for Apple, and in just a few hours we'll all be treated to yet another Apple event with more new digital goodies for the holiday season. Enjoy the show!
Continue reading "Apple Wins New iPhone 3D Modeling App, Apple TV, iChat, iPhone 5 LTE Patents & Much More" »

This morning's top 3 stories covers Apple's iPad mini for education, Samsung suffering a setback in its worldwide legal battle with Apple and Apple is still in pursuit of the Thunderbolt trademark. On the other hand, do they already own it?
Continue reading "Apple Aims iPad Mini at Education, Samsung Loses Injunction against Apple in Tokyo & Apple still in Pursuit of Thunderbolt TM" »

The biggest stories of the morning concern Apple's new court filing countering Samsung's motion for a new trial and that Apple has dropped Java due to a severe security warning. As you could see by our cover graphic, there's more news worth checking out in our report.
Continue reading "Apple Files Opposition to Samsung Motion for a New Trial While Apple Drops Java on Security Grounds and Much More" »

Individuals Zach Ward and Thomas Buchar have along with their legal counsel filed a Class Action lawsuit against Apple for locking consumers into the AT&T Network without first obtaining the consumers' contractual consent to have their iPhones locked. They're seeking, amongst other claims, to have Apple immediately provide consumers with unlock codes for their iPhones and for Apple to do so as a matter of practice in the future.
Continue reading "Class Action Filed against Apple for locking iPhones to AT&T Network" »

Five stories that caught our eye this morning include Apple's new Beijing Store opening tomorrow, Apple's legal loss in the UK and Sharp's IGZO display is now in the market and it certainly has a bright future. To round off our report we point to Microsoft slapping their long standing hardware partners and Google takes another crack at cheap notebooks for everyone.
Continue reading "New Apple Store in China, Apple Loses Design Appeal in UK and Sharp's IGZO Displays Outshine Apple's Retina plus More" »

A Delaware company by the name of Evolutionary Intelligence, LLC has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. The patent infringement lawsuit concerns Apple's iOS mobile operating system and the devices it runs on such as the iPhone. This same company has also filed several separate suits against Facebook, Twitter and others in the last 24 hours.
Continue reading "Company Claims Apple's iOS Infringes on their Intellectual Property" »

On October 18, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published two key patent applications from Apple worth noting. The first is one of the original patent applications for Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, that debuted on the iPhone 4S last year. The second patent covers Apple's AirPlay Mirroring technology that allows content on an iDevice to be wirelessly transferred to a much larger display such as your Home or business HDTV or beyond.
Continue reading "Apple Patent Filings for Siri & AirPlay Mirroring Come to Light" »

It appears that Apple's trademark filing for "Passbook" fell through the cracks over at the US Patent & Trademark Office this past summer. Apple filed for their trademark on June twenty-seventh and it only came to light this morning. In other news, Apple has acquired the hip San Francisco HTML5 firm "Particle."
Continue reading "Apple Seeks Passbook TM, Acquires HTML5 Firm "Particle"" »

Groklaw is reporting that as expected, Judge Lucy Koh has denied Samsung's motion to strike. Samsung pointed out that the judge had told the parties to limit their briefs on two kinds of motions -- for judgment as a matter of law and on motions asking for an injunction -- to 30 pages. Additionally, there was a rule not to use declarations or other exhibits attached to motions to bring up matters not in the main brief. Portions of Apple's declarations attached to Apple's injunction motion, in Samsung's view, violated those rules. So it asked for a sanction, that the offending portions of the declarations be stricken, but Judge Koh didn't see it that way: "Samsung's reason for striking the material is procedural: that the declarations serve to circumvent the page limits for Apple's motion in violation of the Court's Order Re: Post-Trial Proceedings issued on August 28, 2012, ECF No. 1945." As the motion to strike is essentially an "evidentiary or procedural objection" to the permanent injunction motion, it must be contained within the opposition brief and subject to the opposition brief's page limitations. Because Samsung filed the motion to strike separately from the opposition, Samsung's motion to strike is DENIED.
Continue reading "Judge Koh Denies Samsung Motion to Strike (Update)" »

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of thirty-two newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In our final granted patent report of the day we focus on Apple's new NFC Alternative technology, a patent on location services and several camera related patents. And of course, we round off our report with a series of granted patents in our Final Patent Round Up covering an eclectic mix of technologies from virtual keyboards on through to multiple-use acoustic ports.
Continue reading "Apple Wins Patents for Camera & NFC Alternative Technologies" »

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of thirty-two newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover a new audio jack with included microphone patent that actually may foretell of a future iPhone feature. Our report also covers multiple wins for Apple's iPad Smart Cover and others relating to headsets.
Continue reading "Apple Wins Audio Jack with Included Mic & Multiple iPad Smart Cover Patents" »

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of thirty-two newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover a unique 3D remote for a future version of Apple TV that could work with games and applications with superior accuracy and zooming capabilities. Apple was also granted a patent for their industry leading iTunes UI and distribution system along with design wins for the iPad, iPhone and more.
Continue reading "Apple Granted Patents for Unique 3D Remote, iTunes UI plus iPad & iPhone Designs" »

Apple has filed for the trademark "Guided Access in Hong Kong China. The trademark represents a new iOS 6 feature that builds on Apple's Accessibility feature set. The new feature provides users with the ability to confine touch input in certain parts of the screen. In other news today, Microsoft's Xbox Music will debut today, well ahead of their Windows 8 launch.
Continue reading "Apple Files for "Guided Access" TM & Xbox Music Debuts" »

In September Microsoft presented their vision of future gaming and it was a wild ride to read about to be sure. Today, we take a look at what Sony has on their mind for advancing gaming from one of their more recent patent filings. While it's definitely a different vision from Microsoft's, it's equally fascinating in shear scope. Sony envisions a day when your physical controller will be replaced or enhanced with a combination of a human gaze, a voice command, hand gesturing and even telekinetic-like powers. The latter, believe or not, is based on using the gamers own brainwaves that are picked up by an apparatus hidden on the inside of a new gaming headset. And if you're thinking that this will never happen, then think again. We have a video that proves it's already working in early testing.
Continue reading "Future Sony Gaming May use Gaze, Gesture & Brainwave Controls" »

LED Tech Development LLC has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. The patent infringement lawsuit concerns four granted patents that they claim Apple's iPad 3 and MacBook Pro infringe upon. Charles Lemaire, one of the original inventors noted on all four patents in this lawsuit has also been credited with patents for Lockheed Martin, Nuance Communications and other major companies.
Continue reading "Apple Sued for LED Lighting Found in iPad 3 & MacBook Pro" »

Sabine Liewald of Switzerland has filed a copyright lawsuit against Apple for their use of her registered photograph used in connection with Apple's latest Retina Display based MacBook Pro ad campaign without proper license.
Continue reading "Artist Files Copyright Suit against Apple for Retina Display Photo" »

Patently Apple has rounded up a smorgasbord of interesting news tidbits this morning that cover such matters as iPad sales skyrocketing in Vietnam; Apple avoids a sales ban of their products in Korea; the US prepares for a serious first-strike cyberattack from abroad and much more.
Continue reading "Apple's iPad Sales Skyrocket in Vietnam While US Prepares for First-Strike Cyberattack" »

In Apple's R&D Playbook this week we learned that Apple is working on a more sophisticated unlocking screen mechanism and e-Commerce security feature using biometrics. We also learned about new writing techniques for signatures and taking notes on iDevices and even about a cool fabric carrying case for an iPhone. To close out this week's discoveries, we see that Apple revealed another of their new LTE related patents specifically relating to managing connections between an iPhone and a plurality of wireless networks such as 3GPP LTE and 3GPP2 CDMA 2000. The remaining Apple goodies that were published by the US Patent and Trademark Office today could only be loved by the super geeks and engineers amongst us. But if you like this kind of stuff, then we provide you with all of the necessary links to get you to geek heaven.
Continue reading "Apple's R&D Playbook: LTE, Camera, Encryption Patents & More " »

On October 11, 2012, the US Patent & Trademark Office published two patent applications from Apple that reveal their ongoing work related to handwriting on iDevices such as the iPad and iPhone. One filing covers new active writing regions for applications such as Notes while the other filing deals with new writing techniques for signatures. The latter is a needed feature in an enterprise environment or other working environments such as delivery services which require a signature to confirm receipt of goods.
Continue reading "Apple Continues to Advance Writing Techniques for iDevices" »

On Tuesday Apple was granted a patent for a two-step unlock screen feature that has yet to be implemented. Today, Apple introduces us to an all-new unlock screen feature that utilizes higher integrated security features via biometrics that could also be used in e-Commerce transactions. In late September we reported on Intel's big push into building biometrics into future Wintel devices – and so it comes as no surprise that we now find that Apple has been refining next wave e-Commerce security features using highly sophisticated biometrics. To accelerate their biometric projects Apple recently acquired AuthenTec in July. The race is definitely on to get consumers ready for the next wave of e-Commerce transactions and to ensure that they're processed securely.
Continue reading "Apple Invents Biometric Features for e-Commerce & Security" »

The World Intellectual Property Office revealed late last week that Apple had filed for a patent to protect one of their latest inventions relating to an all-new iPhone carrying case that's made from a combination of fabric and a plurality of polymer-based films. Apple's process will also use unbelievably accurate lasers to imprint their logo onto the fabric case with consistent impeccable quality.
Continue reading "New Apple Patent Reveals Future Fabric iPhone Carrying Case" »