BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of smartphones and other related mobile services and devices. The line was originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company BlackBerry Limited from 1999 to 2016, after which it was licensed to various companies.
BlackBerry Limited is a Canadian software company specializing in cybersecurity. Founded in 1984, it developed the BlackBerry brand of interactive pagers, smartphones, and tablets. The company transitioned to providing software and services and holds critical software application patents.
Business method patents are a class of patents which disclose and claim new methods of doing business. This includes new types of e-commerce, insurance, banking and tax compliance etc. Business method patents are a relatively new species of patent and there have been several reviews investigating the appropriateness of patenting business methods. Nonetheless, they have become important assets for both independent inventors and major corporations.
In the United States, a design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of an article of manufacture. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers and computer icons are examples of objects that are covered by design patents.
The United States is considered to have the most favorable legal regime for inventors and patent owners in the world. Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited time from profiting from a patented technology without the consent of the patent holder. Specifically, it is the right to exclude others from: making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, applying for an FDA approval, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent.
In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question. However, some entities, which do not practice their asserted patent, may not be considered "patent trolls", when they license their patented technologies on reasonable terms in advance.
The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) was an administrative law body of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) which decided issues of patentability. Under the America Invents Act, the BPAI was replaced with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), effective September 16, 2012.
The multinational technology corporation Apple Inc. has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation and, like its competitors and peers, engages in litigation in its normal course of business for a variety of reasons. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests. From the 1980s to the present, Apple has been plaintiff or defendant in civil actions in the United States and other countries. Some of these actions have determined significant case law for the information technology industry and many have captured the attention of the public and media. Apple's litigation generally involves intellectual property disputes, but the company has also been a party in lawsuits that include antitrust claims, consumer actions, commercial unfair trade practice suits, defamation claims, and corporate espionage, among other matters.
In United States patent law, a reexamination is a process whereby anyone—third party or inventor—can have a U.S. patent reexamined by a patent examiner to verify that the subject matter it claims is patentable. To have a patent reexamined, an interested party must submit prior art, in the form of patents or printed publications, that raises a "substantial new question of patentability". The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act makes substantial changes to the U.S. patent system, including new mechanisms for challenging patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. One of the new mechanisms is a post-grant review proceeding, which will provide patent challengers expanded bases on which to attack patents.
Thomas J. Campana Jr. was an inventor. He was awarded about 50 US patents in his 30-year career.
Jacobsen v. Katzer was a lawsuit between Robert Jacobsen (plaintiff) and Matthew Katzer (defendant), filed March 13, 2006 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The case addressed claims on copyright, patent invalidity, cybersquatting, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act issues arising from Jacobsen under an open source license developing control software for model trains.
Vringo was a technology company that became involved in the worldwide patent wars. The company won a 2012 intellectual property lawsuit against Google, in which a U.S. District Court ordered Google to pay 1.36 percent of U.S. AdWords sales. Analysts estimated Vringo's judgment against Google to be worth over $1 billion. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the District Court's ruling on appeal in August 2014 in a split 2-1 decision, which Intellectual Asset Magazine called "the most troubling case of 2014." Vringo appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Vringo also pursued worldwide litigation against ZTE Corporation in twelve countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, India, Spain, Netherlands, Romania, China, Malaysia, Brazil and the United States. The high profile nature of the intellectual property suits filed by the firm against large corporations known for anti-patent tendencies has led some commentators to refer to the firm as a patent vulture or patent troll.
A list of BlackBerry-related topics
Article One Partners (AOP) is an online prior art search and intellectual property research crowdsourcing community. AOP was acquired by RWS Group in October 2017 and the AOP Connect crowdsourcing platform is now part of the IP Research group within RWS. RWS IP Research provides crowdsourced prior-art-search services by utilizing an online research community. The company's President stated that, as of June 30, 2018, AOP comprises "more than 40,000 in over 170 countries."
i4i is an independent software company specializing in the delivery of XML / SGML document processing software in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, founded by Michel Vulpe in 1993.
Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. Partnership, 564 U.S. 91 (2011), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. It deals with the presumption of validity and the standard of evidence in patent lawsuits. This case in widely considered as a prime example of a frivolous lawsuit by a patent troll, underscoring the need for a reform of the US patent law.
TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp. is a case stretching from 2004 to 2011, which took place in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. TiVo Inc. sued EchoStar Corp. claiming patent infringement of a DVR technology. The issues addressed during litigation included patent infringement, wording of injunctions, infringing product redesign, contempt of court orders, and contempt sanctions. Ultimately, the court held that EchoStar Corp. had indeed infringed TiVo Inc's patent and was in contempt of court for noncompliance of an injunction. The parties reached a settlement wherein EchoStar Corp. paid TiVo Inc. a licensing fee. Further, the court replaced the established contempt test with a single step test. The simplified test makes it more difficult for patent holders to prove contempt as a result of repeat infringement.
The smartphone wars or smartphone patents licensing and litigation refers to commercial struggles among smartphone manufacturers including Sony Mobile, Google, Apple Inc., Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, Huawei, LG Electronics, ZTE and HTC, by patent litigation and other means. The conflict is part of the wider "patent wars" between technology and software corporations.
Motorola Mobility v. Apple Inc. was one of a series of lawsuits between technology companies Motorola Mobility and Apple Inc. In the year before Apple and Samsung began suing each other on most continents, and while Apple and High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) were already embroiled in a patent fight, Motorola Mobility and Apple started a period of intense patent litigation. The Motorola-Apple patent imbroglio commenced with claims and cross-claims between the companies for patent infringement, and encompassed multiple venues in multiple countries as each party sought friendly forums for litigating its respective claims; the fight also included administrative law rulings as well as United States International Trade Commission (ITC) and European Commission involvement. In April 2012, the controversy centered on whether a FRAND license to a components manufacturer carries over to an equipment manufacturer incorporating the component into equipment, an issue not addressed in the Supreme Court's default analysis using the exhaustion doctrine in Quanta v. LG Electronics. In June 2012, appellate judge Richard Posner dismissed the U.S. case with prejudice and the parties appealed the decision a month later.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is an administrative law body of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) which decides issues of patentability. It was formed on September 16, 2012, as one part of the America Invents Act. Prior to its formation, the main judicial body in the USPTO was the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI).
