Neighborhood Watch

A new patent application by commerce giant Amazon describes a smart doorbell that would use a camera to monitor users’ neighborhoods using facial recognition technology and report suspicious activity to the authorities. Needless to say, it immediately made privacy advocates uncomfortable

Patent Pending

The patent for the doorbell lists as its inventor James Siminoff, the CEO of home security startup Ring, which Amazon acquired in February 2018.

There’s no guarantee that a patent will become an actual product — remember those goofy VR rollerskates Google filed an application for in November? — but CNN speculated that Amazon’s interest in the doorbell is connected to its social network called Neighbors, which is built on Ring technology and is meant to share information about thieves who steal packages.

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by David Faber.

The dispute relates to two Qualcomm patents, but Apple says the ban only applies to phones that run on an older operating system.

The Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court in China granted the two preliminary injunctions against four Apple subsidiaries in China. It relates to two Qualcomm patents that enable users to adjust and reformat the size and appearance of photos and to manage applications using a touch screen when viewing and navigating apps on their phones. iPhones are currently sold with the operating system iOS 12, which Apple says does not violate the patents in question.

The number of European patent applications related to autonomous driving has grown 20 times faster than filings for other technologies in recent years, according to a study by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Council for Automotive R&D.

A release shared by the EPO yesterday, November 7, said that the statistics may “signal the coming of a transport revolution”.

The study, titled “Patents and self-driving vehicles”, showed that between 2011 and 2017, patent filings at the EPO relating to autonomous driving increased by 330%. However, filings directed to all other technologies in the same period rose by just 16%.

Apple presented an electric vehicle feature via a patent application this week entitled "Peloton," which outlines designs to connect the batteries of moving EVs to reduce energy usage via load sharing.

In a patent filed Tuesday by Apple Inc. with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a set of designs for a method linking moving vehicles together for the benefit of all emerged. The document is titled, "Peloton," a term for the main group of bikers in a race. Likewise, the patent describes a method of linking a group of at least two vehicles on the road in the optimal configuration "so that driving range differences between the vehicles can be reduced via load sharing via the electrical connection."

appleinsider Thursday, October 11, 2018 11:03 AM The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus don't violate a Qualcomm European patent, EP1199750, which covers a "post[-]passivation interconnection scheme on top of [an] IC chip," a three-judge panel ruled according to FOSS Patents. The decision comes just one week after a trial, which may suggest that even if Qualcomm files an appeal with the Munich Higher Regional Court, it could face an uphill battle.

Several other German cases are still in progress. One is going to trial in Munich on Nov. 8, and a ruling on another —also in Munich, involving the iPhone's Spotlight search — should arrive in December. Still more actions are being dealt with in the city of Mannheim.

Apple launched its first case against Qualcomm in January 2017, and since then the two companies have filed actions against each other around the world. Simultaneously the firms have had to address various regulatory bodies.

In September, the U.S. International Trade Commission dealt a blow to Qualcomm byruling against banning iPhone imports, even though Apple may have violated one of three cited patents. iPhone assembly takes place entirely overseas, so Apple would have received a serious financial hit had a ban taken effect.

Apple has accused Qualcomm of withholding promised rebates and abusing its market position to demand high royalties. Qualcomm though has complained that Apple is not only violating patents, but even sharing its trade secrets with Intel. iPhones have long used Qualcomm modems, but the iPhone XS line is Intel-only. 

Read more at arsTechnica

The EPO and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA, formerly SIPO) have agreed on a co-operation programme for next year as part of their long-term strategic partnership on strengthening the patent system. The 2019 co-operation work plan was signed by EPO President António Campinos and CNIPA Commissioner Shen Changyu on Friday at their annual heads of office meeting in Munich.

The plan focuses on areas such as patent law and patent examination guidelines, examination quality, data exchange, classification, search tools and machine translation, and also foresees a joint study on computer-implemented inventions. It falls under the framework of the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement signed by the EPO and the Chinese office last year - the first such agreement between two major patent offices.

Rutherford (Gizmodo)

This patent battle between Apple and Samsung is the lawsuit that just won’t go away.

Since 2011, the two smartphone giants have been fighting over five patents due to the claim that Samsung infringed on Apple’s intellectual property when it made a handful of devices including the original Galaxy S 4G, the Galaxy S2, and the Droid Charge.

In earlier hearings, the court had already determined Samsung did infringe on two of the utility patents in question, which was determined by the jury in the most recent trial to be worth a fine of $5.3 million.

However, the more contentious part of the lawsuit involves the three design patents (1, 2, 3) in question, which describe a device with a black front, rounded rectangular corners, similarly curved surrounding bezels, and a colorful grid of icons.