Samsung Galaxy Nexus injunction overturned in appeals court

A US appeals court has lifted the ban on the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone that went into effect late last month. A similar ruling fell short for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 which still remains on the ban list but the ball is now in Apple’s court (no pun intended) on whether or not they want to object the ruling from appeals court.

Google was able to get the Galaxy Nexus reinstated by promising that the phone would soon ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. This OS revision is said to contain tweaks that address the patents in question. Furthermore, Google will also be updating Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with similar workarounds that don’t infringe on the Apple patents in question.

US District Court Judge Lucy Koh banned the Samsung smartphone and tablet on June 30 in a rare pre-trial injunction. She ruled that Samsung infringed on four Apple patents and that Cupertino would see more harm if the injunction wasn’t put in place than Samsung would if it was.

Apple has until July 12 to file an objection to the appeal. Meanwhile, barring any appeals, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will have to remain off store shelves until the trial begins on July 30.

The Galaxy Nexus is back on sale in the Google Play Store for $349 with a note that it will be shipping soon with Jelly Bean. The phone has an estimated ship time of 1-2 weeks as of writing.

Samsung wins patent dispute against Apple, will seek compensation

The Netherlands' District Court of The Hague has ruled in favor of Samsung in a patent dispute with Apple. Samsung claimed that Apple infringed upon patent EP1188269 which relates to a 3G technology used in the iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4 and iPad 1 and 2.

In a statement to CNET, Samsung said they were pleased with the court’s ruling that reaffirms the fact that Apple has been “free-riding” their technological innovation. The company will seek adequate compensation for damages, although an exact monetary figure hasn’t been released yet.

This isn’t the first time Samsung has sued Apple over patent disputes in the region. Earlier this year they attempted to ban the iPhone and iPad from being sold based on alleged infringement of four patents but because Samsung is governed by FRAND (fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory) licensing rules, they must first try to negotiate a licensing deal with Apple for use of the patents.

This latest ruling confirms infringement on one of the four patents from the previous case; Apple was cleared of infringement charges on the other three patents.

FOSS Patents described the ruling as having some symbolic significance because it’s the first offensive case that Samsung has won after more than a year of litigation. They say the impact is very minimal and it’s extremely likely that Samsung won’t bring in enough money from the ruling to offset what they owe Apple in legal fees for losing the three other disputes.

BT sues Google over six key Android patent infringements

This year has been without a doubt the year of lawsuits, with many high profile companies battling it out in courtrooms throughout the world over intellectual property and patent disputes. Barely a day goes by without Apple or Samsung hitting the headlines, and Google has found itself at the receiving end of numerous patent infringement claims regarding its mobile OS. Microsoft has been busy as well, penning multiple royalty agreements with various Android handset manufacturers, despite insiders questioning the validity of the claimed IP violations.

Now British Telecom, a UK-based telecommunications company has taken aim at Android with a lawsuit filed in the state of Delaware, accusing Google of ongoing and pervasive infringement of its patents, and demanding billions of dollars in compensation for the use of six of the firm's key patents.

The move by the British firm could also be repeated in Europe, adding yet another large corporation to the growing list that Google is now fighting off, including giants such as Apple, Oracle and Microsoft.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, a BT spokesperson claimed, "the patents in question relate to technologies which underpin location-based services, navigation and guidance information and personalised access to services and content. BT's constant investment in innovation has seen it develop a large portfolio of patents which are valuable corporate assets." 

If successful, they would be entitled to charge a royalty fee per handset sold, in much the same way Microsoft has already penned agreements with major players like HTC and Samsung. It is also possible that the company would be entitled to compensation for loss of earnings on existing handsets, which with Google's announcement in June that it is activating 500,000 handsets a day will likely run into billions of dollars.

Interestingly, according to the Guardian, many of the patents that BT alleges are infringed would also apply to almost all of Apple's iPod, iPhone and iPad range. Whether Apple has licensed the use of these patents is unknown, but the next couple of months could be interesting for the Cupertino-based giant should no arrangement be in place already.

A spokesperson for Google responded with a statement saying, "we believe these claims are without merit, and we will defend vigorously against them."

Witcher 2 devs suing pirates, claim to be sure who downloaded illegally

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings was very well received last May, gathering mostly positive reviews with an aggregate critics' score of 90/100 according to our Product Finder. The game was made exclusively for the PC -- and unlike many others a console version is in the works for later release and not the other way around -- and since the launch of patch 1.1, The Witcher 2 was made DRM-free for all.

That certainly spells confidence on the platform, as developer CD Projekt is said to have sold over a million copies of the game thus far. That's not only thing they feel confident about however. The Polish developer is going after pirates of the game, claiming that only people who they are sure downloaded a copy of the game illegally are receiving a threat of legal action, not very different to the pay-up-or-else scheme used by other organizations that track torrent downloads.

“We’re addressing only 100% confirmed piracy causes that are 100% possible to prove,” said Michal Nowakowski, CD Projekt's VP of Business Development to PC Gamer. “We are not worried about tracking the wrong people. As this is the trade secret of the company working on this, I cannot share it. However, we investigated the subject before we decided on this move, and we aware of some past complications. The method used here is targeting only 100% confirmed piracy cases. No innocent person was targeted with the letter so far. At least we have not received any information as of now which would indicate something like that.”

Reports indicate that in the past few months several batches of notices have been sent in Germany asking for a settlement equivalent to 911,80 euros ($1190) as compensation for illegally obtaining a copy of the game.TorrentFreak estimates over a thousand of these letters have been sent in this country alone, while worldwide piracy for The Witcher 2 (measured in BitTorrent downloads) is around 2 million copies.

It's also known CD Projekt is relying on an unnamed third party to monitor downloads and target individuals based on that information, though once again the company is claiming 100% accuracy on who is receiving legal threats. Michal Nowakowski said to PC Gamer they haven't had to go to court yet on any of these cases and that the real settlement sum asked from pirates is lower than the figure circling around the web.

Megaupload sues Universal and joins fight against SOPA

The file-hosting service Megaupload and Universal Music Group (UMG) have locked horns, after a video released by the former was removed on Friday from the popular video sharing site YouTube over Universal's claim that it violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). 

The surprise video featured leading recording artists including P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Macy Gray, Chris Brown, The Game and Mary J Blige, singing the praises of the popular service. As news of the video began to spread Google pulled the video in response to UMG and IFPI copyright takedown demands.

On late Friday, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom demanded that YouTube re-instate the video, to which UMG then responded to with another takedown request.  Speaking with TorrentFreak yesterday, the file-sharing service's CEO David Robb said, "let us be clear: Nothing in our song or the video belongs to Universal Music Group. We have signed agreements with all artists endorsing Megaupload."

The illegitimate removal of the Mega Song was in promotion of its soon to be launched, iTunes style service Megabox, which will see artists earn 90% of each song sold. In Robb's opinion, it was a deliberate step in order to prevent a real competitor from going viral as news spread. The irony is it might actually benefit the firm by providing the type of media coverage that money cannot buy.

He further commented that all attempts to contact the music giant to start a dialogue have resulted in questionable legal threats, including demands for a public apology. "Regrettably, we are being attacked and labelled as a ‘rogue operator’ by organizations like the RIAA and the MPAA," Robb said, while pointing out that his firm take piracy very seriously by closing accounts of repeat offenders and removing illegal files.

After getting nowhere with the music group, the file-sharing site has filed a lawsuit with the San Jose District Court, and intends to sue the group for misrepresenting DMCA rights as a basis for validating the removal of the video from YouTube.

The whole situation has led them to start endorsing those opposing the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, otherwise known as SOPA. “UMG is currently lobbying lawmakers in Washington for legislation that would allow them to not only delete specific content from a website, but to delete entire websites from the Internet. After this demonstration of the abuse of power by UMG, we are certain that such an instrument of Internet censorship should not be put into the hands of corporations,” Robb said.

He also took the opportunity to thank everyone for their massive support, and asked everyone who agreed to join forces and fight for an Internet without censorship.

Sony and GeoHot settle over PS3 hacking lawsuit

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) and PlayStation 3 jailbreaker George Hotz, also known as GeoHot, have announced the settlement of the lawsuit filed by SCEA against Hotz in federal court in San Francisco, California. The parties reached an agreement in principle on March 31, 2011, and as part of the settlement, GeoHot consented to a permanent injunction. The terms of the settlement were not fully disclosed.

SCEA accused Hotz of violating federal law by posting online information and software about how to circumvent the PS3's security system, thus allowing users to play pirated videogames. Hotz denies any wrongdoing on his part, though he was required to take down the postings challenged by SCEA.

"Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us," Riley Russell, General Counsel for SCEA, said in a statement. "Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal. We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices and products in a safe and fun environment and we want to protect the hard work of the talented engineers, artists, musicians and game designers who make PlayStation games and support the PlayStation Network. We appreciate Mr. Hotz's willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution."

"It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier," Hotz said in a statement. "I'm happy to have the litigation behind me."

Sony's legal attacks against the hackers that released the PS3 root key and custom firmware began three months ago. The group known as fail0verflow was accused of posting a rudimentary hack in December 2010 after finding security codes for the PS3. It was refined by GeoHot weeks later when he independently found and published the PS3 root key. The resulting hacks allow homebrew apps and pirated software to run on unmodified consoles. Sony is still threatening to sue anybody posting or distributing PS3 jailbreak code, despite the fact that the company accidentally tweeted the PlayStation 3 security key.

Looking back, Sony largely won this legal battle. The company succeed in getting GeoHot to hand over his hardware, even demanding two copies of the data, one in encrypted and one in decrypted form. A federal judge allowed Sony to obtain the IP addresses of everyone who visited GeoHot's personal website for a period of 26 months (since January 2009) as well as the account names of anyone who has accessed a PS3 jailbreak video on the 21-year-old's YouTube account, his tweets relating to the hacking on Twitter, information on people who posted comments to his blog on Blogspot, and information about his account on the PSX-Scene website. The same judge also later granted the company access to GeoHot's PayPal account for the last two years.

Sony's official stance remains if you crack your PS3, you'll get banned. GeoHot meanwhile previously said "beating them in court is just a start." Apparently, settling is the same thing as winning.