Apple Loses In Court…. But They Ask For A Stay…

The iLawyers have just taken a big hit. Apple has just lost a $625.5 million judgment in court. But wait! They’ve asked for a stay:

Apple asked U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis for an emergency stay of the Oct. 1 verdict, saying there are outstanding issues on two of the three patents. Apple said patent owner Mirror Worlds would also be “triple dipping” if it were able to collect $208.5 million on each of the patents.

So what’s the lawsuit about? Here’s what Bloomberg said:

The trial focused on the Spotlight, Time Machine and Cover Flow features in Apple’s Mac operating systems. Cover Flow lets users scroll through album cover art when browsing for music in their iTunes library. The feature also works for documents, pictures and other material stored in a computer.

Spotlight searches the computer’s hard drive, while Time Machine automatically saves copies of files.

The world really doesn’t need another patent troll to profit. Expect Apple to drag this out for years to come.

Wind Moblie Serves Up Lawsuit Against Rogers Over Chatr… Shock… Not.

It seems that Mobilicity isn’t the only one who can be ticked off at Rogers launching the Chatr brand. Wind Mobile has now unleashed the legal dogs upon Rogers by filing a formal complaint with the Competition Bureau:

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Lacavera stressed his Competition Bureau complaint was different from Mobilicity chairman John Bitove’s, which many legal experts and wireless executives had dismissed out of hand because Rogers’ prices did not undercut the new entrants’ pricing, but rather matched it.

Mr. Lacavera said he wasn’t “whining” about competition, but merely wanted to address Chatr’s marketing material, which has built a campaign around the fact that it has the same prices as many new entrants, such as Wind and Mobilicity, but has a much more stable network with “fewer dropped calls.” The influential Canadian telecom consultancy SeaBoard Group, among others, has previously criticized Wind for having a spotty network, though many in the industry say this is normal for a new wireless network and it is, in fact, improving with time.

But these dropped calls, Mr. Lacavera said, are the result of a “regulatory loophole” related to a “hard” hand-off, where calls are dropped when Wind customers roam from Wind’s network territory onto the network of a big incumbent. He said this is in contrast to other countries where a “soft” hand-off is the norm, whereby the call is seamlessly transferred back and forth from one network to the other without the call ending and annoying the consumer.

It totally makes sense that Rogers is going to act in a manner that some such as these new cell companies would see as being predatory. They have the finance to do so. And I am pretty sure that they feel that they have to protect their market share any way they can. Personally, I can tell Rogers how to deal with the threat of new entrants in the cell phone market. Lower your prices to be in the area of the new entrants, give superior customer service, and push the advantage of a mature network. They don’t need to create a new brand to do this. Just take the Rogers band which they spent so much money on and do all of what I mentioned. One other thing, they don’t have to beat the prices of the new entrants. They just have to be in the same area and combine it with the other stuff I mentioned. I assure you, they’d do very well if they did that.

But it’s too late now and I suspect that Rogers may wish that they never started Chatr.

India Doesn’t Like RIM’s Message Snooping Solution

From the “you could see this coming a mile away” department comes news that India doesn’t like the solution that RIM provided it to snoop on Blackberry traffic:

In an internal note, dated September 28, reviewed by ET, the telecom department’s security wing claims security agencies have been unable to intercept or monitor secure email communication made through the (BES) in readable format. “RIM maintains that it does not have the keys that can be offered to security agencies for converting secure corporate email into readable format,” said a senior DoT official with direct knowledge of the matter. The DoT internal note claims law enforcement agencies have failed to intercept chats on the BlackBerry Messenger platform, which runs counters to the home ministry’s recent position that it is satisfied with the interception solution offered by RIM.

Um, hello? You shouldn’t be shocked by this as RIM did say right up front that you guys couldn’t do precisely what you’re trying to do, nor can RIM give you that capability. So please stop whining about it.

Here’s a message for India or anybody else who wants access to Blackberry traffic: It’s not OK for democratic governments to brazenly invade our privacy and have default access to all communication. Get that through your heads.

Please.

Microsoft To Unveil Windows Phone 7 Handsets On October 11th

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is set to unveil handsets that use their new Windows Phone 7 OS on October 11th on the AT&T network:

Microsoft will receive the marketing support of AT&T, which will be the initial exclusive U.S. carrier to sell the Windows Phone 7 smartphones. AT&T plans to sell the devices the week of Nov. 8. Initially, the carrier will offer three handsets—one each made by Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc., and HTC Corp.—as it looks to diversify its portfolio of mobile devices beyond the iPhone.

One has to wonder if Microsoft is making a mistake by jumping into bed with AT&T. But that may not be it’s biggest problem. Here’s one that might impact Microsoft more:

Microsoft’s own attempt to create a youth-oriented mobile device earlier this year fizzled. The company and carrier partner Verizon Wireless launched a line of Kin phones, but they scrapped it in July after only two months in the market.

Oh yeah. Those Kin phones which flamed out so amazingly. I almost forgot about them and most of the universe didn’t even notice them. Here’s the other thing that might impact them:

The company has been widely criticized for fumbling its acquisition of Danger, which created the software that powered the Sidekick messaging device popular with younger consumers.

It also didn’t help that they kind of tossed their users offline for a significant period of time which helped to kill the phone. I really hope they learned their lesson from both of these so that they can launch a phone platform that people actually want.

Larry Ellison Rips HP Over New CEO…. WTF?

I thought that these two kissed and made up? It seems that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has something negative to say about the choice of Léo Apotheker as the new HP CEO:

He emailed the Wall Street Journal, saying, “I’m speechless…HP had several good internal candidates…but instead they pick a guy who was recently fired because he did such a bad job of running SAP.”

He also said, “None of the HP board members own much HP stock so they have little to lose. But the HP employees, customers, partners and shareholders will suffer…The HP board needs to resign en masse…right away. The madness must stop.”

I might have missed a memo Larry, but why do you care precisely? Okay. I will admit that HP might have been better off picking someone internally for the job instead of someone who got canned from SAP for sucking big time. After all, one only has to look at Robert Nardelli’s time at Chrysler to see how that sort of game worked out. But really, it’s none of your business Larry. You really need to go back to running Oracle.

Seriously.

Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Patent Infringement

Apple has been suing rival smartphone makers for some time. But I’m kind of surprised that Microsoft is getting into the game. On Friday, they filed an ITC complaint against Motorola accusing them of infringing on a number of Microsoft patents:

“Microsoft filed an action today in the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola, Inc. for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by Motorola’s Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.

It’s interesting to me that Microsoft like Apple before it isn’t going after Google in this lawsuit seeing as Motorola uses the Google Android OS. I’m not sure what the deal is with that. But I suspect that one of two things will happen, either this will be fought out for years in court, or they’re going to come to some sort of arrangement very quickly.

Anybody care to take bets on which one happens?