Apple, Rambus, Pfizer, Microsoft: Intellectual Property
Apple Inc. must provide to Samsung Electronics Co. its contracts with Australian mobile-phone carriers as the South Korean company demanded in a patent dispute with the iPhone maker, a judge ruled.
Apple needs to produce agreements it has with Vodafone Group Plc (VOD), SingTel Optus Ltd. and Telstra Corp., should the Cupertino, California-based company fail to agree on an assertion in Samsung’s patent lawsuit that the carriers are contractually obliged to subsidize iPhone sales, Australia Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett ordered yesterday.
Samsung sued Apple in Australia, claiming the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 2 infringe its patents and is seeking a ban on the sale of the devices in the country. Bennett ruled the contracts with the phone operators are relevant to Samsung’s case. Apple said it would oppose the disclosure and suggested it was a speculative effort to find damaging information.
“We will resist any attempts by our friends to push us into a corner” on the subsidies, Apple’s lawyer Andrew Fox told the judge. “This is quite clearly a fishing expedition.”
The Samsung lawsuit, filed Sept. 19, was in response to Apple’s request for a court order barring the sale of the Galaxy Tablet 10.1 in Australia, claiming the device infringed Apple’s patents. Bennett granted Apple’s request for an injunction on Oct. 13.
The Australian dispute is part of a wider battle between the two companies that spans four continents and began in April when Apple sued in the U.S., claiming Samsung’s products “slavishly” copied the designs of iPhones and iPads.
In the Australian suit, Samsung also sought the source code for the iPhone 4S firmware to support its case that Apple infringes its patents for wireless transmissions. Apple has turned over 220 pages of documents relating to the source code, Fox said.
Samsung said the source-code disclosure wasn’t enough because a file was missing. The company sought an order for Apple to produce the documents.
Bennett deferred judgment on Samsung’s request for the additional source-code material and said she would deal with it on Nov. 11, if the two sides can’t reach an agreement in the meantime.
The case is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. NSD1243/2011. Federal Court of Australia (Sydney).
Rambus Patents Should Be Invalid, U.S. Trade Agency Staff Says
Rambus Inc. (RMBS) patents asserted against companies including Broadcom Corp. (BRCM) and Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) should be found invalid by the U.S. International Trade Commission, according to an agency staff recommendation.
The recommendation applies to a complaint filed in December 2010 by Rambus, a Sunnyvale, California-based designer of high- speed memory chips that wants the companies to pay royalties on five patents for technology in communications devices and electronics. The agency has the power to block imports of products made outside the U.S. that are found to infringe U.S. patent rights.
Daniel Girdwood, an investigative attorney with the ITC, listed a total of 66 recommendations yesterday in a filing posted on the agency’s website. The filing doesn’t explain the reasons for the recommendation.
The staff acts as a third party in some ITC cases, and the agency’s judges aren’t required to follow the recommendations. A trial on the case was heard last month, and ITC Judge Theodore Essex is scheduled to release his findings Jan. 4.
While recommending that the patents be declared invalid, the ITC staff said it found that that the patents at issue had been infringed and shouldn’t be deemed unenforceable because of document destruction by Rambus. The staff also said that if a violation of Rambus rights is found, certain products that infringe the patents should be banned from the U.S.
Other companies named in the Rambus complaint include Asustek Computer Inc. (2357), Garmin Ltd. (GRMN), LSI Corp. (LSI) and Seagate Technology Plc. (STX)
The case is In the Matter of Certain Semiconductor Chips and Products Containing Same, 337-753, U.S. International Trade Commission (Washington).
Pfizer, Ranbaxy Sued Over Lipitor Prices by 11 Pharmacies
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. (RBXY) were accused by 11 California pharmacies in a lawsuit of agreeing to hold back a generic version of the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor in the U.S. and then fixing its price.
As a result of an unlawful agreement with generic-maker Ranbaxy, Pfizer was able to make $18 billion by extending its time as the exclusive U.S. source of Lipitor, the pharmacies claimed in a lawsuit filed Nov. 7 in federal court in San Francisco. In exchange, Pfizer allegedly allowed Ranbaxy to distribute the generic of Lipitor earlier in foreign markets.
Lipitor sells for more than $4 a day compared with prices as low as 10 cents day for the generic, the drug stores said in their complaint. Lipitor’s purchasers in the U.S. are paying inflated costs as a result, the pharmacies said.
Lipitor, which generated $10.7 billion in revenue for New York-based Pfizer last year, loses U.S. patent protection on Nov. 30. A legal settlement with Pfizer gave New Delhi-based Ranbaxy six months’ exclusivity to market generic Lipitor, the world’s best-selling drug.
The lawsuit seeks disgorgement of profits from the allegedly illegal arrangement and triple damages.
Chris Loder, a Pfizer spokesman, said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reviewed the terms of the 2008 settlement.
“Pfizer believes this suit has no merit and we are confident that the Lipitor patent settlement with Ranbaxy is appropriate,” Loder said in a telephone interview. “We view the suit as nothing more than an attempt to extract money.”
Chuck Caprariello, a spokesman for Ranbaxy, didn’t immediately respond to a voice-mail message Nov. 8 seeking comment on the complaint.
The case is Chimes Pharmacy v. Pfizer, 11-5375, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
Ericsson Eyes Sales From Mobile Industry’s Top Patents Trove
Ericsson AB, the world’s largest maker of mobile-phone networks, aims to increase revenue from its more than 27,000 patents as devices from toys to energy meters get wireless access, its chief executive officer said.
The Stockholm-based company, which helped develop the global system for mobile communications that enables handsets to latch onto networks from London to Jakarta, holds the industry’s largest portfolio of wireless communication patents. Generating more revenue from rights would help smooth out fluctuations in network orders.
The intellectual property covers “basically everything in the telecom industry,” including the world’s largest collection of WiFi patents, company President Hans Erik Vestberg said in an interview. Revenue from patents more than doubled to 4.6 billion kronor ($704 million) last year from 2 billion kronor in 2006.
“If we are going to get 50 billion connected devices in 2020 it’s not only going to be handsets,” Vestberg said yesterday. “It’s not going to be practical for us to make bilateral negotiations with all the manufacturers. We need new business models and we need to work in groups.”
Ericsson plans to get royalties from intellectual property in areas it hasn’t monetized before, such as Web searches and optical transmissions, Vestberg said.
The company has relied on bilateral agreements and industry standards consortia to establish cross-licensing and fair royalty rates among handset and infrastructure vendors. Going through chipmakers may be the most efficient way to secure royalties from a broader range of products, Vestberg said.
In July, Ericsson joined a group of companies including Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. to buy more than 6,000 patents from Nortel Networks Corp. for $4.5 billion
A month later, Google Inc. (GOOG) agreed to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion, gaining mobile patents and expanding in the hardware business. Helena Nordman-Knutson, a Stockholm-based analyst at Pareto Oehman, estimates that Ericsson’s patents could be valued at as much as $15.5 billion, based on the price Google paid for Motorola’s intellectual property.
Ericsson, which sold its first telephone in 1878, last month agreed to divest its stake in its handset venture Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB to partner Sony. The sale will permit Ericsson to concentrate on selling infrastructure gear as well as network and customer management services to phone companies and others.
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Trademark
British Legion Says Poppies with Teardrops Infringe Trademarks
The Royal British Legion, which raised funds through its annual poppy sale to aid active military and veterans in the U.K., has told a charity fundraiser that her sale of crystal teardrops for the poppies is a trademark violation, the BBC reported.
The worker created 4,000 tears -- to be applied to the poppies Britons wear in the days leading up to the Nov. 13 Remembrance Sunday observance -- and received an endorsement from the wife of Prince Charles in her efforts to raise funds for the Legion and other charities, according to the BBC.
The Legion told the BBC that the only lawful use of the poppy is to raise funds through its annual Poppy Appeal and that any other use was unlicensed infringement.
After the worker sent some of her teardrop-adorned poppies to Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, and received a note saying the duchess would wear the poppies with pride, the Prince of Wales’ office told the BBC that the duchess wouldn’t comment on any private correspondence.
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Copyright
Julie Taymor Sues ‘Spider-Man’ Producers for Infringement
Julie Taymor, the theatrical director best known for her transformation of the Walt Disney Co. “Lion King” film to a staged musical version, is suing the producers of the musical based on Spiderman comics for copyright infringement.
In her complaint filed Nov. 8 in federal court in Manhattan, Taymor claims she wasn’t adequately compensated for her work on the “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark” musical, and that revisions were made to her work without her consent after she was fired from the production in March 2011. The “book” presently used for the Broadway production infringes her work and copies wholesale Taymor’s contribution, she said in her pleadings.
In her complaint, Taymor said the production, now playing in the Foxwood Theater in Manhattan, regularly grosses $1.4 million or more per week, with ticket prices averaging more than $100 per seat and the theater at an average 90 percent capacity for eight performances per week.
She also claimed that “Spider-Man” merchandise, including a souvenir program, uses her work without authorization. Producers’ failure to pay her what was due by contract rescinds their license to the work, according to court papers.
She is asking the court for money damages of at least $1 million, and an award for profits she says are related to the alleged infringement. She also seeks a court order barring the unauthorized use of her content, and a declaration that the use of her name of likeness in a “making of” promotional film violates her right of privacy.
The producers told Entertainment Weekly that Taymor had been adequately compensated and that the court system would provide a resolution to the dispute.
Taymor is represented by Charles T. Spada and Matthew Gage Coogan of Lankler Siffert & Wohl LLP of New York.
The case is Julie Taymor v. 8 Legged Productions LLLC, 1:11-cv-08002-RJH, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage
Microsoft Releasing Patch Against Industrial Espionage Virus
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, is releasing a software patch aimed at defeating an industrial espionage virus, the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reported.
The virus is said to be related to Stuxnet, which disrupted the Iranian nuclear program, according to the Telegraph.
The new virus, known as Duqu, can “install programs, view, change or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights,” Microsoft said and the Telegraph reported.
The virus was intended to steal proprietary information, the Telegraph reported.
To contact the reporter on this story: Victoria Slind-Flor in Oakland, California, at vslindflor@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.
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