The United States International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate into the patent complaints filed by Apple against rival Nokia, in their ongoing litigation battle.
Starting last October, Nokia sued Apple over patents relating to technologies used in the iPhone. Apple then countersued, and eventually asked the ITC to step in. Apple is seeking an injunction on some Nokia products, and Nokia is looking for royalty payments, payments that will likely be in the hundreds of millions per year.
The ITC is already looking into Nokia’s claims.
Result for: litigation
Beijing’s leading Intermediate People’s Court has ruled today that Microsoft must immediately cease sales of the Chinese versions of Windows 98, 2000, 2003 and XP after it was found that the OSs include fonts created by a local Chinese company, violating licensing agreements.
The ruling should cause a precedent in the region. “(Chinese firms) are going to think of China as a place to have their own litigation strategy, I think that’s a trend that’s coming,” says Michael Vella, head of China litigation and intellectual property rights at Morrison & Foerster LLP. “We saw it in Taiwan. At first, Taiwanese companies were always on the defensive, and in recent years we have seen them initiating litigation.”
The ruling specifically stated that Microsoft violated licensing agreements with Zhongyi Electronic, the company which had designed the Chinese character fonts.
Microsoft is prepared to appeal. “Microsoft respects intellectual property rights. We use third party IPs only when we have a legitimate right to do so,” read a company press release.
Overall however, the decision will likely not affect Microsoft’s bottom line in any way, given the high (80 percent-plus) piracy rates of the operating systems in China and the age of the operating systems in question.
Result for: litigation
John Donahoe, Chief Executive of auction-giant eBay Inc., said that despite recent lawsuits over the underlying technology used in Skype, the $1.9 billion sale of majority interest in the Internet communication service will go ahead. “This deal is going to close,” Donahoe told the annual summit of Shop.org, adding that Skype will be very successful under the “right ownership structure.”
Joltid Ltd, a Swedish company owned by the original creators of Skype, Joost and Kazaa, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, sued eBay for allegedly using its software without authorization.
There had been some fears that the lawsuit could derail the $1.9 billion deal with Netscape founder Marc Andreessen’s Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Silver Lake and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
However, Donahoe showed Reuters an e-mail sent on Wednesday morning to him by eBay Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan that said no “show stoppers” had been identified in the recent litigation. “We’re marching along,” Donahoe said, adding that he expected that by November, the deal will have been completed.
