Sony and Samsung to Cross-License Patents
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Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Samsung Electronics (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday they had agreed to share patents on basic technology to speed up
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Microsoft and Turbolinux, a Tokyo-based Linux distributor, are cozying up with a patent cross-licensing deal and agreement to work more closely together, the companies said Tuesday.For users, one of the most significant elements to the deal is a pledge to work on a single sign-on system that will allow log-on to Windows-based and Turbolinux-based machines with one set of credentials.At present Windows and Turbolinux machines on a mixed network can&#39;t access a common authentication database, but their deal should change this, said Noriko Otake, a spokeswoman for Turbolinux in Tokyo.To further this work and other cross-platform projects, the two companies have also entered into a patent cross-licensing deal, specific details of which were not disclosed.Interoperability testing of single sign-on and other future projects will take place at Microsoft&#39;s offices in Beijing. Turbolinux is active worldwide but has its strongest footprint in Japan and China.Turbolinux will also add&#160;Microsoft&#39;s Live Search&#160;service to its desktop operating system.The deal expands cooperation between the two companies that is intended to remove some of the hassles of using Linux, said Otake. Earlier this year Turbolinux added Windows Media Player to its platform, allowing users access to the large amount of content online encoded in that format, and the company has also been working on support for the Open XML document format.Turbolinux also said it will participate in the Interoperability Vendor Alliance, a Microsoft-sponsored community of software and hardware vendors.For Microsoft the deal is the latest in a string of over 200 patent-licensing agreements signed since it launched an intellectual property licensing program in late 2003. Last week the company announced a similar deal with Japanese digital imaging vendor Olympus Corp., and previous agreements have included Novell,&#160;Fuji Xerox, Linspire, Kenwood, LG Electronics, Nortel Networks,&#160;and Samsung Electronics.&#160;
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Samsung Electronics has replied to a&#160;patent-infringement lawsuit filed against it by Sharp&#160;by lodging complaints of its own with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Tokyo District Court, it said Thursday.Samsung filed the U.S. complaint on Dec. 21 and alleged that Sharp&#39;s LCD products infringe upon four of its U.S. patents. The patents were not detailed in Samsung&#39;s statement. It asked the trade regulator to launch an investigation into the complaints and, as is typical in such cases, block Sharp from importing into the U.S. products that contain the LCDs in question. Such products could include TVs, monitors, laptop PCs, and cell phones.The ITC will now examine the complaint and decide whether to move forward with a formal investigation.Samsung followed the U.S. complaint with a complaint lodged in Tokyo on Wednesday in which it alleged that LCD televisions sold by Sharp in Japan incorporate LCD modules that infringe upon two of Samsung&#39;s Japanese patents. As in the U.S. complaint, Samsung asked the court to halt manufacturing and sales of the infringing products in Japan.On Dec. 12,&#160;Sharp filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung&#160;in the Seoul Central District Court. The lawsuit alleges the LCD modules and televisions manufactured and/or sold by Samsung in South Korea infringe upon three Sharp patents. The Korean patents concern technology that allows high brightness and high-speed response as well as a wide viewing angle, Sharp said in a statement at the time.The lawsuit was the second filed by Sharp against Samsung.On Aug. 6, Sharp filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging LCD modules manufactured by Samsung and LCD TVs, computer monitors and mobile phones that incorporate the modules infringed on its U.S. patents: 4,649,383 , 5,760,855 , 6,052,162 , 7,027,024, and 7,057,689 .Samsung said Thursday that it is also pursuing lawsuits against Sharp in Delaware and Texas.
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LONDON - After a year of negotiations two of the world&#39;s giants of consumer electronics, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sony Corp.
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Seoul, December 14: South Korea&#39;s Samsung electronics and Sony of Japan on Tuesday singed an agreement to share patents for digital technologies in major products, Samsung said.
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The world's top handset maker, Nokia   NOK1V.HE, is set to announce a patent-licensing deal with   navigation technology firm Trimble Navigation Ltd. TRMB.O,   the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
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Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) said on Friday it  would buy certain chip-related patents from Micron Technology  Inc.  and secure licences for all the patents held by  Micron unit Lexar Media Inc. for $288 million, ending lawsuits  between the Japanese electronics maker and Lexar.
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Research In Motion Ltd.    and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.  have  settled a lawsuit in which RIM alleged the South Korean  electronics giant had infringed on its well-known BlackBerry  trademark with its competing BlackJack smartphone.
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Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics said  on Tuesday they had agreed to share patents on basic technology  to speed up product development and avoid adding to a growing  number of cross-border patent disputes.
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(InfoWorld) - Seven Networks agreed to license patents from Visto, settling a dispute between the companies over push e-mail patents. In addition to the licensing agreement, the companies have settled all legal actions against each other. The two have been battling over patents for three years. In late December, a court upheld an earlier jury decision that found that Seven had infringed on three Visto patents. But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had already made an initial ruling that one of the patents in question was invalid. At the time, Seven said that it expected the USPTO to make its final decision during the time it appealed the court ruling. Instead, Seven has worked with Visto to settle the matter. Their dispute was one of many in the push e-mail market, an indication of the perceived potential for the industry. The battle follows the high-profile case between Research In Motion and NTP. That suit threatened to shut down the popular BlackBerry push e-mail service used by executives and government workers, butÂ RIM ultimately settled with NTP. Visto licenses patents from NTP. Visto is also battling patent infringement suits against other push e-mail providers, includingÂ Good Technology,Â RIM, andÂ Microsoft. Infowave Software was also the subject of an earlier patent suit from Visto but the company ultimately agreed to license Visto's software in 2004.
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Microsoft Corp.  and South Korea's LG Electronics  said on Wednesday they have entered into a patent cross-license agreement.
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In a deal that could lead to the creation of a unique cross-platform authentication system for heterogenous networks, Tokyo-based Linux distributor Turbolinux announced this morning, Japan time, it has reached an agreement with Microsoft for a cross-licensing of the two companies' patent portfolios.
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Swedish telecom equipment giant Ericsson and Japanese electronics maker Sony are moving their business relationship well beyond cell phones into the mobile and broadband TV space.
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(InfoWorld) - Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and Samsung ElectronicsÂ have reached a cross-license agreement for their mobile telephony patents, ending recentÂ lawsuits between the two companies, Ericsson said Monday. The worldwide agreement covers 2G (second-generation) and 3G (third-generation) mobile telephony standards, Ericsson said in a news release. The agreement allows the two companies to develop, manufacture and sell 2G and 3G subscriber and infrastructure equipment, Ericsson said. The firms will pay royalties to each other. In August 2006,Â Ericsson filed a fresh lawsuit against SamsungÂ in a court in Texas, charging Samsung with infringing Ericsson mobile phone patents. That action followed lawsuits filed in February 2006 in Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K. and the U.S. after the two companies failed to agree on terms for a renewal of patent licenses. Ericsson originally signed a licensing deal with Samsung in 2002 for patents related to several mobile phone technologies. That agreement expired in 2005, and it allowed Samsung to use patents from Ericsson for GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) technologies, according to Ericsson. Â
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South Korea&#39;s Samsung Electronics Co.  Ltd. (005930.KS) and Sweden&#39;s Ericsson (ERICb.ST) on Monday  signed a mobile telecommunication cross license deal and agreed  to drop ongoing patent suits between the two companies.
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Research in Motion settled a lawsuit filed against Samsung Electronics alleging trademark infringement on its hugely popular Blackberry handheld email devices by Samsung's Blackjack cell phones.
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A fifth cross-licensing agreement between Microsoft and a Linux-using company was announced late Wednesday. LG Electronics is the latest company to make a deal related to Microsoft's unproven claims to Linux-related patents.