Tag Archives: patent

Will the Supreme Court end human gene patents after three decades?

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Since the 1980s, patent lawyers have been claiming pieces of humanity’s genetic code. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted thousands of gene patents. The Federal Circuit, the court that hears all patent appeals, has consistently ruled such patents are legal.

But the judicial winds have been shifting. The Supreme Court has never ruled on the legality of gene patents. And recently, the Supreme Court has grown increasingly skeptical of the Federal Circuit’s patent-friendly jurisprudence.

Meanwhile, a growing number of researchers, health care providers, and public interest groups have raised concerns about the harms of gene patents. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that more than 40 percent of genes are now patented. Those patents have created “patent thickets” that make it difficult for scientists to do genetic research and commercialize their results. Monopolies on genetic testing have raised prices and reduced patient options.

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Apple says VPN changes coming in iOS thanks to VirnetX verdict

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Apple has been forced to change how iOS devices use VPN following a $368.2 million patent verdict in favor of patent and research firm VirnetX. The company wrote about the changes in a support document posted to its website on Thursday (hat tip to AppleInsider), saying the behavior of VPN On Demand would be different from expected starting with iOS 6.1, and the changes would come in an update that will be released this April.

“Due to a lawsuit by VirnetX, Apple will be changing the behavior of VPN On Demand for iOS devices using iOS 6.1 and later,” Apple wrote. “This change will be distributed in an update later this month.”

The changes are relatively minor—devices with VPN On Demand configured to “always” will instead behave as if they’re set up to “establish [a connection] if needed.” Apple says the device in question will then only establish a new VPN On Demand connection if it’s not able to resolve the DNS of the host it wants to reach (these settings can currently be found within Settings > General > VPN).

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Google patents software solution to extending a phone’s battery life

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Google has been granted a patent for reducing the quality of a mobile device’s display in order to preserve battery life as it dwindles, according to a report from DroidLife. The patent describes a system that disables animations or even reduces the resolution of the screen in service of reducing the display’s battery usage.

With the exception of smartphones designed with prodigious battery life as a feature, the devices often seem to be on the cusp of a battery fainting spell towards the end of a day. Lately, hardware manufacturers have been packing their devices with more milliamp-hours, lower-power-consumption chips, and more power-conscious displays, but Google has its own software-based approach to mitigating prematurely empty batteries.

In Google’s workflow, an OLED display on a low-battery phone would work through a number of functionality cutbacks as it lost power. Initially, the phone would stop using blur and animation functions during navigation, but it could also cut down the resolution and “command only black and red colors” to display what’s on the screen.

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You can’t patent simple math, judge tells patent troll Uniloc

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A patent troll that accused Rackspace of violating a patent merely by selling Linux-based servers has seen its case thrown out. A judge ruled the patent claim invalid because it describes a relatively simple math operation.

The company in question is Uniloc, which has a long history of suing tech vendors. In 2009, a US District Court judge overturned a $388 million verdict Uniloc had won against Microsoft. That litigation was finally settled late last year for an undisclosed sum. Uniloc continues litigating, however, with at least a dozen lawsuits filed just last week.

Uniloc sued Rackspace in June 2012 in US District Court in Eastern Texas (PDF), claiming Rackspace violated its patent “by or through making, using, offering for sale, selling and/or importing servers running Linux Kernel (version 2.6 or higher), which is used to process floating point operations carried out on Rackspace’s servers including those servers used in conjunction with Rackspace’s hosting solutions/products.”

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Apple Patents Battery-Saving Multi-Touch Displays That Don’t Need To Be Active To Work

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Screen Shot 2013-03-26 at 7.25.16 AM

Apple was granted a patent Tuesday by the USPTO (via AppleInsider) that describes a system for implementing multi-touch in a mobile device even when there the display itself isn’t actively showing any images. It’s a neat trick, and one that could help portable gadgets save battery life by not invoking the most battery-hungry element in their construction nearly as frequently.

The patent also notes that the screen doesn’t have to be off for these no-look commands to work; a user could do things like swipe a finger in circle to change volume or tracks, for instance, even while a display is active. That adds new control options, but also makes it possible to both remove external buttons should a design benefit from that, and also make the device easier to use when in a pocket or clipped to an armband or waist during a workout.

While the display is inactive, the patent describes that it could use gestures that mirror the button press actions on current iPod and iPhone headphone remotes. So, a single click could play/pause, a double click could skip tracks, and a long press could call up Siri, for instance.

In terms of recognizing when touch is and is not wanted, the patent suggests implementing a special mode that would allow it to both keep the screen dark but also receive touch inputs. This might involve a way to activate a mode between a full lock and a completely on and active device, which can be selected specifically for when a user is commuting or using the device while working out, but disabled when there’s risk of accidental touch.

It’s an interesting patent, and one which Apple has shown off as working with its previous iPod nano design, which essentially featured a square display and little else in terms of physical buttons. The trick might be making this work in such a way that it still completely eliminates any chance of accidental input – the lock screen concept is synonymous with touchscreen devices for a reason, after all.

Not activating the screen as much as possible is the key to prolonging device battery life, though, so it’s good to see Apple looking at ways to deal with that primary limiting factor. It’s no e-ink display built into the back of a smartphone, but it’s something.

Cisco beats patent holder VirnetX, which sought $258 million over VPN patent

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VirnetX, a patent-licensing firm with 14 employees, has seen its stock price fall precipitously over the last 24 hours or so after it lost a major patent trial in Texas on Thursday. A jury there ruled that Cisco did not infringe VirnetX’s patents on virtual private networks (VPNs), and that the networking giant didn’t have to pay $258 million in damages.

After the verdict was announced, the company’s stock quickly fell by 40 percent. VirnetX’s stock has already lost about 7 percent (hovering around $24 per share) since the markets opened today (as of this writing), and is down from a recent high of around $35 per share before the verdict. While being a patent troll can be a lucrative business model for many firms, VirnetX sustained a net loss of nearly $27 million in 2012.

“We are grateful that a jury in Tyler, Texas, agreed with Cisco that our accused products do not use VirnetX’s technology,” Cisco General Counsel Mark Chandler said in a statement on Thursday. “Cisco will continue to do the right thing for our customers and shareholders by vigorously defending against patent infringement lawsuits that lack merit.”

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Judge upholds FaceTime patent verdict against Apple, orders royalties to boot

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A $368.2 million verdict against Apple has been upheld in the Eastern District of Texas, putting patent holding company VirnetX in a position to collect both royalties and damages from Apple if it continues to use its VPN and FaceTime technologies. Judge Leonard Davis ruled late Tuesday on Apple’s request for either a reduction in the damages or a new trial, denying both requests and ordering the two companies to work out a licensing deal on VirnetX’s patents.

The lawsuit began in 2010 when VirnetX filed suit against Apple, Cisco, and other companies over their respective VPN implementations (which included Apple’s FaceTime tech in iOS and OS X). The suit waddled through the court system for more than two years until VirnetX won its $368.2 million judgment against Apple in late 2012. The firm then tried to ask the court for an injunction stopping Apple from continuing to use the technology.

The similar lawsuits against Cisco, et al are still ongoing and trials have been rescheduled for next month. VirnetX also secured a 2010 settlement from Microsoft over the same patents.

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Apple patent application describes iWatch… slap bracelets?

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Slap bracelets activate
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Remember slap bracelets? Remember how they could become deadly flesh-slicing machines if you removed the outer layer? Apple may be planning for the so-called “iWatch” to sport similar properties—hopefully without the flesh-slicing. A recently published patent application, discovered by AppleInsider and Patently Apple, shows that Apple has put some serious thought into the design of a wearable device—this one in particular resembling the slap bracelets that children of the late ’80s came to know and love.

The patent describes a device with a flexible, multitouch display that can display things like text messages or other notifications. This largely matches the basic functionality described in recent iWatch rumors, though the patent goes a step further to describe a possible solar panel underneath the display for power, as well as a “kinetic energy gathering component, wherein the battery can be trickle charged.”

Some observers thought Apple might simply build upon the iPod-nano-as-a-watch concept from 2011, but the slap bracelet concept from this patent application is what has people buzzing Thursday morning.

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