Motorola Hits Apple with New Patent Lawsuit

Motorola has filed a new lawsuit against Apple regarding smartphone patents, this time in Florida. Motorola has identified six patents related to wireless antennae, software, data filtering, and messaging that it believes Apple is violating in the iPhone 4S and iCloud. Earlier this month, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that Motorola did not violate certain Apple patents, and in December Apple was found guilty in a German court of violating one of Motorola’s patents. Apple is battling its smartphone competitors in courts around the world. ...

Microsoft Made $250M in ‘Platform Support Payments’ to Nokia

Nokia’s most recent quarterly results show that Microsoft paid the company $250 million for adopting Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform. “Our broad strategic agreement with Microsoft includes platform support payments from Microsoft to us as well as software royalty payments from us to Microsoft,” said Nokia. “We have a competitive software royalty structure, which includes minimum software royalty commitments. Over the life of the agreement, both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the ...

RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie to step down, replaced by COO Thorsten Heins

According to the Wall Street Journal, RIM plans to make a big change in its corporate leadership tomorrow, as it will replace its current tag team of CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie with the company’s COO, Thorsten Heins.It has been rumored for some time that Lazaridis and Balsillie would be replaced in the near future, as shareholders have expressed their disappointment with the duo since the middle of last year. RIM has had a rough year, with sliding market share and declining stock prices. It doesn’t expect to launch new smartphones with its new BlackBerry 10 operating ...

Apple Announces iBooks 2 for iPhone and iPad

Apple today revealed a significantly revised version of its iBooks application for the iPhone and iPad. iBooks 2 adds new elements for education, including support for textbooks. The textbooks feature offers full-screen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, videos, and photos; high-lighting and note-taking; and tools such as study cards, live questions, and a glossary. iBooks 2 is a free download from the iTunes App Store. ...

EU to Decide Motorola-Google Fate Feb 13

The European Union will make a decision regarding Google’s acquisition of Motorola on February 13. It was scheduled to make a decision earlier this month, but postponed while it waited for additional materials from Google. Google has since supplied the requested items. Google announced plans last August to purchase the handset maker for $12.5 billion. The deal has been awaiting regulatory approval. ...

ZTE and Ericsson Bury Hatchet, Resolve Patent Suits

Ericsson and ZTE today announced that they have come to terms over patent litigation between them. The companies have both signed a global cross-licensing agreement and agreed to drop all litigation. ZTE has also signed a royalty-bearing license agreement to certain Ericsson patents. The patents in question concerned GSM and 3G/UMTS cellular technology. Companies in the telecommunications space often use litigation as a tool to forge such licensing agreements. ...