A U.S. Judge has scheduled an injunction hearing in a patent dispute between Apple and Motorola Mobility, after raising the possibility last week that the case may be dismissed as neither side had established a right to relief.
Judge Richard A. Posner said in an order on Wednesday that the hearing would be on June 20, and each party may argue for injunctive relief against alleged patent infringement by the other. "The parties should be prepared to address the possibility of substitution for an injunction of an equitable decree for a reasonable royalty going forward," the Judge said.
Posner, a Circuit Judge, is presiding over Apple's patent lawsuit against Motorola and Motorola Mobility in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, a trial court.
While stating last week that he had tentatively decided that the case should be dismissed with prejudice, Judge Posner said in his order that he would delay entry of judgment until he had prepared a full opinion in about a week, as he may change his mind in the course of the preparation.
The Judge limited himself to briefly sketching the grounds for his tentative view, in which he stated that he could not find basis for injunctive relief, as it would impose costs disproportionate to the harm inflicted on the patent holders or benefit to alleged infringer, and would be contrary to the public interest. He also canceled a trial scheduled to begin this week on Monday.
Motorola should be prepared to address the bearing of FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) on the injunction analysis, if it means to argue for injunctive relief, Judge Posner said in his one-page order this week. FRAND is used to describe the relatively easier licensing terms on which companies commit to license standards-essential patents.
Import bans and other exclusions on the basis of alleged infringements of standards-essential patents have come into focus after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission last week expressed concern to the U.S. International Trade Commission on this issue.
In a submission to the ITC, the FTC said it was concerned that a patent owner can make a FRAND commitment as part of the standard setting process, and then seek an exclusion order for infringement of the FRAND-encumbered standards-essential patent as a way of securing royalties that may be inconsistent with the FRAND commitment.
FTC made the submission in the context of the ITC investigation into Motorola Mobility's charges of patent infringement against both Apple and Microsoft. Some U.S. Congressmen and companies including Nokia and Verizon Wireless have adopted similar positions before the ITC.
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com
Motorola XOOM 10.1 tablet now down to £250 - Itproportal
Argos is selling the original Motorola XOOM, which was unveiled at CES last year, for a mere £250. This is the 32GB model which had an original selling price of £480.
The tablet rivals the Apple iPad 2 which costs £329 and comes with half the memory and half the onboard storage. The XOOM was the first tablet to offer Android 3.0 Honeycomb and is upgradable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
There's also 1GB RAM, 32GB onboard storage, a 10.1in 1,280 x 800 pixels capacitive display, a rear 5-megapixel camera and a front facing 2-megapixel one, a microSD card slot and the possibility to plug in a mumber of peripheral like a HD dock but no laptop dock like for the Motorola Atrix.
It is 13mm thick, weighs 730g, features Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microUSB and microHDMI, HD video recording and has up to 10 hours battery life. The fact that you can add another £18 to double the amount of onboard storage means that the XOOM is still a very decent tablet.
Source : Argos
T-Mobile offers free 4G phones for Father's Day, with small catch - Los Angeles Times
T-Mobileplans to give away free 4G phones for two days as part of a Father's Day sale that begins Friday.
The sale includes all 4G phones supported byT-Mobile's network, but the phones aren't exactly free when you get them.
A spokeswoman for T-Mobile explained that anyone wanting to partake in the sale will have to sign up for a two-year contract and pay for the phone up front. T-Mobile will then give them a mail-in rebate card, making the phone free.
A bit tricky, but eventually it's free, assuming you send in the card.
Among the phones included in the sale are the HTC One S, the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Nokia Lumia 710 and the BlackBerry Bold 9900. The T-Mobile Springboard tablet is also included in the sale.
“We want to say thanks to fathers for all they do and keep them easily and affordably connected to family throughout the entire year,” said Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing for T-Mobile, in a prepared statement.
It's a great sale, but it's only available through T-Mobile's stores, not online. Also, the sale will not include the heavily anticipated Samsung Galaxy S III, which T-Mobile begins selling June 21.
Existing T-Mobile customers can take advantage of the sale, but unless you've had your phone and plan for at least 18 months, you'll have to pay a migration fee.
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Judge gives Apple reprieve in patent case vs. Google - Reuters
June 14 |
June 14 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has agreed to hear Apple's request for an injunction against the sale of some Motorola phones, giving the iPhone maker a chance to head off a damaging ruling in the smartphone patent wars.
Last week Judge Richard Posner in Chicago canceled a trial between Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit and Apple Inc, saying in a tentative ruling that neither could prove damages. But in an order on Wednesday, Posner decided to let attorneys plead their case on an injunction before he makes a final decision.
Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet declined to comment, while Google representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Motorola sued Apple in October 2010, a move that was widely seen as a preemptive strike against an imminent Apple lawsuit. Apple filed its own claims against Motorola the same month.
Posner issued a series of pretrial rulings that eliminated nearly all of Motorola's patent claims against Apple from the prospective trial, while maintaining more of Apple's claims against Motorola. That meant Apple had more to gain in the trial, which had been set to start on Monday.
Apple had sought an injunction barring the sale of Motorola products, but in last week's ruling cancelling the trial, Posner said an injunction would be "contrary to the public interest." One legal observer has said Posner's decision had a good chance of getting overturned on appeal, in part because the judge had rejected Apple's request for a hearing.
Posner set the injunction hearing for June 20 in Chicago. Motorola may also ask for an injunction on the one patent in the case that it can still assert against Apple.
The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, is Apple Inc and NeXT Software Inc vs. Motorola Inc and Motorola Mobility Inc, 11-cv-8540.
Motorola Atrix 3 'Dinara' powers through the FCC en route to AT&T - engadget
The Motorola Dinara, also known as the third-generation Atrix, has been making the occasional stop at the rumor mill to drop off knowledge bombs, but now it looks like we have some official FCC documentation to supplement the intel. Going undercover as the MB886, it sports the proper LTE bands for AT&T and even uses the same model naming convention as its two predecessors. Naturally we don't get much more information than the usual measurements and radios (of which include HSPA+ / WCDMA 850 / 1900 as well as quad-band EDGE), but the phone is rumored to include an LTE-friendly Snapdragon S4 processor and a 720p display.
T-Mobile and the iPhone: 7% of the way to becoming friends - Gigaom.com
T-Mobile USA iPhone users can start rejoicing this summer – at least a few of them can. T-Mobile will complete its planned conversion from GSM to HSPA+ on 2,500 of its cell sites this July, T-Mo CTO Neville Ray revealed at the NGNM conference on Thursday. The upgrade will put its mobile broadband network firmly in the PCS band in 7 percent of its network, which makes it compatible with all current versions of the iPhone.
That doesn’t mean T-Mobile will start selling the iPhone directly, but some of the million-plus current unlocked or hacked iPhones on T-Mo’s network may soon start seeing a “4G” icon popping up on their notification bars, as well as find their current slow-poke Edge speeds jump up to multiple megabits per second. Any customer coming off an AT&T contract with an unlocked iPhone 3GS, 4 or 4S will be able to buy a SIM card and hook into the HSPA+ network where the upgrade is complete.
In a blog post, T-Mobile revealed more details about its ambitious spectrum refarming plans, which requires sunsetting a large portion of its 2G capacity. It is changing out gear in 400 of its cell sites this month as an initial test before its engages in a large-scale conversion next month.
Those 2,500 cell sites are only a fraction of T-Mobile’s 37,000-site network, so most of the country will have to wait before they can get mobile broadband at the PCS band. But T-Mobile will most likely target whole cities for the refarming, rather than upgrade a handful of sites in each market. So if you happen to leave in one of those select markets you may get close to uniform HSPA+ coverage. The first city on the list is most likely San Francisco, where T-Mobile has already tested the new network – not coincidentally during Apple’s World Wide Developer conference.
Apple won’t actually tap T-Mobile to be an iPhone retailer until all or most of its HSPA+ network is converted to PCS. That day could come as soon as this year or it may not come until well into 2013 right up to the point it launches its LTE network. My bet, though, is we’ll see a fully functioning and nationwide HSPA+ network on PCS long before we see LTE. T-Mobile needs to activate HSPA+ at PCS before it can start shutting down its current mobile broadband networks in the Advanced Wireless Services band, which is the spectrum that will host its LTE service.
The iPhone 4S can’t match T-Mobile’s theoretical 21 Mbps and 42 Mbps of T-Mobiles HSPA+ and dual-carrier networks, but it still has a substantial ceiling of 14.4 Mbps, providing an experience comparable to AT&T’s network and much faster than what Sprint and Verizon Wireless can currently offer on their CDMA networks.
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Has Motorola succeeded in reviving the Razr? Maybe - Gigaom.com
An astonishing bit of news has come out of a recently released financial research note from William Blair. According to the sources of analyst Anil Doradla, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx has displaced the iPhone 4S as the top selling smartphone at Verizon Wireless, Barron’s reported. The iPhone has always been the top smartphone at every North American carrier it has landed on, so for another vendor – particular a struggling Motorola Mobility — to displace it is quite a feat.
Of course, long before there was an iPhone, Motorola held the title of the world’s iconic device maker. Its Razr phones – and StarTacs before them – were the cutting edge in industrial design, leading customers bought more than 100 million of the suckers. But Motorola failed to find a suitable replacement for the Razr line, choosing instead to keep retreading the design until it became a bit of a joke (remember the Krazr?).
Since 2011, Motorola has tried to revive the Razr brand, but the Droid Razr and the subsequent Razr Maxx aren’t just mere retreads. Motorola referenced the Razr’s slim industrial design (though it had to make some sacrifices to accommodate the Maxx’s fatter battery), but has otherwise produced a completely different device, powered by Android and its own suite of productivity and entertainment features.
If Doradla is right and the Razr Maxx has truly begun outselling the iPhone at Verizon, then Motorola and its new Google overlords definitely have cause to celebrate. It’s probably a bit too early to predict a revival of the Razr’s glory days though. Since the new Razr line only sells on Verizon’s network here in the U.S., there’s no other carrier to compare its sales to. And there are plenty of reasons why the Razr might do uniquely well on Verizon’s network and not on AT&T, Sprint or another operator’s network.
The growing appeal of LTE
Verizon’s 4G network may not be the deciding factor for most smartphone buyers, but it’s certainly impacting some customers’ decisions. Verizon has been selling LTE hard, launching huge nationwide advertising campaigns. It may even be steering new customers or upgraders away from the iPhone to its Android LTE portfolio. CNet’s Eric Mack wrote that when he contacted Verizon customer service to inquire about upgrading to the iPhone 4S, the salesman quickly pointed out the Apple device didn’t support LTE and suggested the Razr Maxx or Galaxy Nexus as alternatives.
Few carriers have the stake in LTE that Verizon currently has. It was the first major operator to launch its LTE network in 2010 and it has rapidly expanded its network to cover more than 200 million people. Verizon has publically stated it won’t offer any new smartphone model that doesn’t contain LTE radios.
While AT&T is also building out its LTE network, its footprint is much smaller, and Sprint won’t take its LTE network live until this summer. They would much rather customers bought 4G phones in order to justify their LTE investments, but they have far less on the line than Verizon.
Old chums
It’s also important to note that Verizon has a special relationship with Motorola – Big Red is one of the main reasons the vendor is still in business. Verizon gets exclusivity on Moto devices and a high degree of customization for its services and branding (hence the Droid moniker). Verizon has every interest in promoting Motorola’s devices, while a carrier with a more generic relationship with Motorola might not be so inclined to promote the Razr line. AT&T isn’t exactly gung-ho about the Atrix.
Still if other carriers see the Razr Maxx selling like hotcakes they may start asking for the device as well, assuming its exclusivity agreement with Verizon is expiring. If not Motorola will have to try to build momentum for the devices internationally. It just started selling the device in several European countries.
The real U.S. test will come this fall, when Apple is expected to release an LTE version of the iPhone. Motorola is due for an update to the Razr line in the same timeframe, meaning the two 4G devices will likely go head-to-head over the holiday season on Verizon’s network. If the Razr’s current success is only due to customers seeing it as a 4G alternative to the iPhone or to Verizon’s LTE marketing gusto, we’ll find out then.
Original Razr photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Jeremy Smith
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T-Mobile LTE trials to begin next month, network to launch early 2013 - Phandroid
T-Mobile’s making steady progress on its LTE network, it seems, as they’ve announced that LTE trials will begin next month. These trials are a tad lengthy, but it’s a necessary step to ensure the network will take off and stay up without a problem. But the wait for the network won’t be long as T-Mobile have committed to early 2013 to begin their widespread launch.
We’re still not sure what to expect for their device lineup once that window approaches, but we’re sure they’ll have a compatible smartphone or two available by that summer. Sure, they’re late to the game but as the cliche saying goes: “it’s better late than never. [via Android Community]
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