Dell, Ferrero, Lucasfilm, EBay, UMG: Intellectual Property:
Dell Inc., the world's second- largest personal-computer maker, and two suppliers were told to pay $5.4 million to closely held Convolve Inc. after a jury found they infringed a patent related to hard-disk drives.
The federal jury in Marshall, Texas, late yesterday said Dell should pay $1.5 million, Western Digital Corp. $2.5 million and Hitachi Ltd. $1.4 million, according to the verdict sheet posted on the court's website.
MOTOROLA THIS week began proceedings against Apple for what it claimed were violations of its patents. The patents – Motorola claimed these include innovations in 3G and Wi-Fi antenna design, wireless e-mail, proximity sensing and software application management – all revolve around Apple’s iPhone, which just happens to be a major competitor.
If you haven’t heard about this lawsuit, it may be because it’s one of approximately a bazillion patent battles in the mobile field.
On Tuesday, Microsoft sued Motorola over its Android smartphones, including e-mail, contacts and calendar synchronisation. In March, Apple sued HTC, another maker of Android phones. The creator of Android itself, Google, was sued by Oracle for patent violations in August. Nokia is suing Apple, Qualcomm, the LG Group, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi and Motorola.
