Tag: INTELLECTUALPROPERTY

Intellectual property is one of the most hotly debated subjects online. Should there be patents or not? And what can be patented? And once you have a patent, when is it fair to protect it? But to argue about these things, everyone should have the terminology down. What exactly is a patent? And what's a registered trademark? And what, then, is a registered design (which I did not know)? Sprocket ...

In a continuing, drawn-out, and rather banal storyline that's reminiscent of a cheap daytime soap, Microsoft has sued Motorola for infringing nine patents in its Android phones. The patents cover functions such as "synchronizing e-mail, calendars and contacts." This all comes just a few days after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's annual bonus was slashed due to poor performance in the mobile ...

Social networking giant Facebook just scored an intellectual property victory by patenting its News Feed, the constantly-updating stream of friends' activities that users see when they sign into the site. The patent, uncovered by AllFacebook, also includes News Feed features like advertising, filters, and searching the feed. The original application was filed by Mark Zuckerberg and half a dozen ...

I don't know if this kind of thing happens over in the UK (probably in the London Times, if anything), but it seems the New York Times has given Bono of U2 fame a one-off guest column in their paper. In it he has a bit of a mindless rant above the next ten years: cars, pollution, sports and then, out of frickin' no where: PIRACY. Citing, of all things, China's ability to quash online dissent, he ...

Yesterday, we posted that Craigslist joined the 20th century with a 1990's-esque blog to let the world in on what's going on within the inner self of Craigslist. Today, Craigslist is already making fantastic progress through time. No, the blog still looks like it belongs in 1996, but it is demanding that the fan operated craigslistblog.org surrender it's domain. Although Craigslist CEO Jim ...

Functionally irrelevant but newsworthy nonetheless, Xandros -- the Debian based Linux distribution formerly known as Corel Linux -- has joined Novell in alienating the FOSS community by licensing Microsoft intellectual property and creating an illusion of indemnification against potential MS vs. Linux user lawsuits. Few details are available about the deal. Microsoft's SVP of Server and ...

How do you get people to stop posting television clips and full episodes to the internet? You probably don't. But a government panel in Japan has an interesting take on that idea: don't try to stop internet pirates, just regulate them. The Intellectual Property Rights Policy Work Group is expected to issue its recommendation this week. If adopted, anyone would be allowed to post television ...

In a hard-fought battle, RealNetworks appears to have won a major patent victory to protect their technology. This is a patent that already faced a struggle with the Patent Office itself, just to get filed in 1999 (and it took 5 years to do that). But it now looks like the "streaming through a congested network" magic is owned by RealNetworks... Despite a previous patent by Apple for the ...