As of today a federal appeals court is upholding the judgement to bar Microsoft from selling current versions of Word and Office. The question is, what does the patent actually entail? The original patent can be summarized as covering a "method and system for manipulating the architecture and the content...
In order to usher the patent system "into the 21st Century", Deputy General Counsel for Microsoft Horacio Gutierrez believes that "global patent harmonization" must happen. In a recent CNET article Andrew Donoghue lists a number of opponents to Microsoft's ever-growing patent power. The Redmond giant has been widely criticized for...
Google just received a designpatent for Google Search's homepage. It took the US Patent Office over five years to approve this patent (D599,372) for the design of a "graphical user interface for a display screen of a communications terminal," but Google's request was finally approved yesterday. The company already owned...
VoloMedia, a podcast analytics, advertising, and distribution company, just received a patent for "providing episodic media," including podcasts. According to the company, which filed for the patent in November 2003, U.S. Patent 7,568,213 covers all episodic media downloads, not just the RSS-dependent downloads that power today's podcasts. VoloMedia CEO Murgesh...
According to a study published in The Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, patents may be harming our ability to innovate. Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts, written by Bill Tomlinson of UC Irvine and Andrew Torrance of University of Kansas School of Law, tested the hypothesis with a...
Think Major League Baseball's stats and live video iPhone app is cool? Imagine what Apple could do with technology it was granted a patent for this week: a network of sensors that deliver real-time velocity, impact, rotation and other data from sporting event participants to the web. Imagine your iPhone's...
We live in an age when success of innovation is mixed with unprecedented failures. On one hand we're reinventing the web, fighting for a greener future and building genomix. On the other there are housing bubbles, credit crises and war. The technology patent crisis is important to our future. For...
GraphOn, which considers itself a "leading worldwide developer of server-based application publishing and Web-enabling software solutions," today announced that it is suing Google for infringing on four of GraphOn's patents. According to the complaint (embedded below), Google Base, AdWords, Blogger, Sites, and YouTube allegedly infringe on GraphOn's patent for a...
One week after suffering a major blow to its infamous "1-Click" shopping patent, Amazon.com has been awarded what's sure to be seen as its latest bit of highly obnoxious IP. The company has been awarded a patent on the practice of "including a search string at the end of a...
Slashdot is running a story stating that Morfik, an Ajax development platform we covered recently on Read/WriteWeb, has filed a patent dated September 2005 for the compiling of high-level languages into AJAX apps. The timing of the news is interesting, because Morfik is just about to release its version 1.0...
On 31 March 2005 a Google US patent was made public that reveals interesting data on how they rank your website. Patent number 20050071741 was actually filed on 30 September 2003, but it was only made public at the end of March. Darren Yates did some analysis on it -...
Sony has filed a patent for an auto-play feature, which allows AI to take the wheel for those monotonous grinding moments in video games. The patent, aligning with the trend of other companies transitioning to AI as it increasingly integrates into business models, has the potential to revolutionize the way...
Oh man, we are just a a week or so away from the new Fallout TV show appearing on Amazon Prime and to celebrate Amazon Studios has teamed up with GUNNAR eyewear to produce these cool-looking blue-light-reducing Fallout Vault 33 shades. The Vault 33s come in three strengths of tint,...
It has been reported that iPhone 17 may come with a display feature that can help block reflections and most sunlight, an issue described by many Apple users. iPhone users have often complained that the screen does not display properly if it is too bright. Although the device's screen brightness...
Apple could be set to introduce a touchscreen for the iMac, in what would be a reversal of a long-standing policy. A report indicated an updated patent application has been lodged, revealing an iMac design complete with a pivot stand. An iMac like this would become more portable and easier...
Considering Apple has a reputation for releasing product updates every couple of years, it is somewhat surprising that we're yet to be treated to the second generation of the hugely popular Apple AirPods Max. The AirPods Max represented Apple's first foray into the over-ear headphones market when they launched in...
Apple has been working on its first foldable product for quite some time — but it won’t be an iPhone.This is according to Taiwanese supply chain sources, who told DigiTimes (via MacRumors) that this product has been in the works for quite some time. According to the outlet, the foldable...
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a final refusal to OpenAI's request to trademark "GPT," stating that the term is "merely descriptive" of the technology it represents, as per TechCrunch reporting. This decision marks a significant challenge for OpenAI, the entity behind the widely recognized ChatGPT, as it...
Apple users have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new phone -- the iPhone 16, with bated breath, despite the iPhone 15 having just been released in late 2023. Rumors have already been swirling about a significant AI upgrade for the upcoming phone. Expected to debut in September 2024,...
Japanese gaming titan Nintendo has filed new patents in the UK, leading gamers to believe that a much-loved console will make a début on Nintendo Switch Online and Expansion Pass. Nintendo is yet to confirm any news about the Gamecube, but it has gamers speculating what could be a sign...
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