HTC loses Apple patent ruling… but only one of them.

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20th December 2011

HTC loses Apple patent ruling… but only one of them

The International Trade Commission found that HTC infringed one patent held by the US technology giant, down from the ten as originally claimed. The patent in question relates to the use of “data tapping” which allows a user to select embedded data within a screen (for example a phone number) and do something with it (for example make a call to it).

It’s a pretty hollow victory for Apple, and by inference good news for HTC/Google/Android. Expect a small tweak to HTC’s software to be made in the next few months so that they conform with the ruling.

HTC’s share price is back up following the verdict, which mirrors investors take on our own. It means that HTC will need to make changes, but pretty small ones. It could have been a lot lot worse.

Barry Hesk

Juniper suing Palo Alto for Patent Infringement

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20th December 2012

Juniper suing Palo Alto for Patent Infringement

Hard on the heels of Palo Alto’s entrance into Gartner’s “leaders” section of their 2011 Magic Quadrant, Juniper has “responded” by suing them for patent infringement claiming that Palo Alto developed the Next Generation firewalls despite them knowing that Juniper had already lodged patents.

The report which seems to have caused all of the issues is available here

It’s nice to see that the IT industry is keeping the world economy moving by ensuing that billions of dollars continues to be spent on legal fees.

Barry Hesk

RIM share price continues it’s slide

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16th December 2011

RIM share price continues it’s slide

Research In Motion (RIM)’s woes continue apace after the issuing yesterday of their Q3 figures. Whilst the business still posted a heatlhy profit for the quarter, it was force to write down $485 of “exceptional items” which mostly related to unsold Playbook tablets. $485 million is a lot of unsold hardware and I guess the annoucement is saying that RIM doesn’t expect it to ever be sold.

RIM haven’t had a good year. They have had to delay their new OS launch – Blackberry ONX – until the end of 2012 (probably at the same time that the iPhone 5 will be shipping). They were also hit by the very well documented 3 day outage that impacted both enterprise and consumer customers. Finally, this year’s Christmas trading figures show a slump in sales with Android and iPhone taking up the slack.

RIM’s share price fell 7% yesterday alone, and is now down 70% from it’s peak value. The world appears to have turned against RIM and it could be a tough 2012 for them.

Barry Hesk