Apple has received a patent for the dock utility for launching applications in OS X. Yes, the dock has been around for the better part of a decade, but Apple applied for the patent back in 1999 and didn't receive it until this week. The patent describes an interface for consolidating frequently used items in a "userbar." It also covers the way that items are magnified when you scroll your cursor over them.

In other words, it looks like Apple may be able to go after the makers of ObjectDock, RocketDock, sTabLauncher, Avant Window Navigator, Cairo Dock and others. Sure, those applications may not steal any code from Apple, but they're based on the same concept.

Now, I'm not saying Apple shouldn't have been able to patent the dock concept. I'm not going to take a position on that, one way or the other. But this is the sort of thing that can happen when it takes the US patent system 9 years to rule on a patent application.

[via The Register]

If you liked the iPod/Nike+ gadget to help you with your runs, you may be excited to know that was merely the beginning of what seems to be a much larger pie Apple has been working on (pun absolutely intended).

AppleInsider appears to have gotten its hands on some patent filings made for what looks like a comprehensive "fitness companion." At this point, it looks like a bunch of iTunes-esque prompts for a "fitness inteview" to help you get a fitness program for your goals, and flow chart type displays of how these programs might look as you are using them.

Considering that it is still in the patent stages, we have no idea if Apple is really going to follow through. But at least we can be hopeful. Whether this will work on current iPod Touch/iPhone technology or on next generation models isn't clear, especially with rumors of new iPods coming on the market later this year.

Or maybe we can just memorize our workouts and write down our progress on paper. Old school, but it works.

[via TechMeme]

It must be a strange week to be an intellectual property lawyer for Amazon. Days after the US Patent Office threw out a patent for "one-click" checkout button, the USPTO has granted Amazon a patent for something that seems at least as obvious: placing a "search string at the end of a URL without any special formatting."

Wait, that can't possibly mean what we think it means. They have a patent on URLS like "www.a9.com/San Francisco Hotels"? Yup, that's exactly what it means. Amazon claims that what differentiates these URLs from others is the lack of special formatting language like "search?q=."

Now, there are at least two basic problems with this as far as we can tell:

1. Generally you're only supposed to be able to get a patent for things that aren't obvious.
2. We're pretty sure there will be a lot of companies who can show "prior art," meaning they had URLs following this format long before Amazon filed for the patent in 2004.

Anyone want to predict how long it will take Amazon to try patenting a system for ordering products online using a keyboard and mouse?
[via Slashdot]

You're not supposed to be able to patent anything that's obvious. That's a gross oversimplification of complex US patent law, but basically we've always wondered how Amazon got away with patenting a "one-click" shopping button. Sure, nobody else can use the exact same code you did to create a one-click checkout button. But seriously, did the US Patent Office think that the idea to click a "buy now" button was original?

While we just scratched our head and laughed, blogger Peter Calveley went and did something about it. He filed a re-examination request last year. And now that the patent office has taken another look at the one-click patent they've rejected a large number of claims made by Amazon. In other words, while Amazon has a chance to respond, there's a good chance this patent will be revoked.

[via Boing Boing]

A few years back auction company eBay had the audacity to add a feature that lets customers buy items for a fixed price without bidding in an auction. You know, pretty much like every other retailer on the web.

But MercExchange filed a lawsuit claiming that eBay's "Buy It Now" feature violated a patent held by the company. The suit's been working its way through the court system for the last six years. On Friday, a federal judge denied a request for a permanent injunction, meaning that eBay can keep using the "Buy it Now" buttons.

But it ain't over til it's over. In 2003 a jury awarded MercExchange more than $25 million in damages, which eBay has not had to fork over because of the pending litigation. Now it's up to the patent office to decide whether eBay if violating MercExchange's patent. You know, for clicking a button to buy stuff.

[via Information Week]

Last month Vonage officials said they weren't sure they could find a way to continue offering VoIP telephone service without using technology that a jury said infringed on patents held by Verizon. But it seems like things are looking up for the troubled company.

During a quarterly earnings call, Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron said the company would be ready to roll out a workaround for two of the patents its said to be violating soon. They're still working on a way to get around a third patent which applies to wireless transmission of phone calls.

There's no word on exactly what these workarounds will entail. Vonage is seeking an appeal in its case against Verizon, but a federal judge had already ordered the company to stop signing up new customers. That order has been stayed, but it seems like a generally good idea for Vonage to explore alternative technologies whether they're successful on appeal or not.

So a court decides that your entire business model is based on a technology that infringes on another company's patents. What do you do?

Well, if your Vonage and the other company is Verizon, apparently you seek a retrial. It's not unusual for defendants to seek a retrial in addition to appealing. Usually there's not much chance of getting the new trial, but this time Vonage is hoping a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding obvious patents will help the company make its case.

Vonage has asked the Appeals Court considering its case to halt the appeals process and send the case back to a lower court for a new trial. Vonage's lawyers are arguing that the jury in the first trial were weighing the evidence based on a rigid definition of patent law. Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling means that the definition may have been too rigid.

While the courts have allowed Vonage to continue operations during the appeals process, the company hasn't had much good news in recent months. A retrial could rescue Vonage from the brink of death.

Ask any tech company and they'll tell you, skull-whacking obvious patents are a giant pain in the posterior. Patents were designed to give real innovators an opportunity to profit from their inventions, but have in recent years become a profit center for many patent portfolio holding robber barons hell-bent on profiting from the work of others.

Not so fast there patent Pete.. The Supremes stood in chorus today and belted out a tune to many a tech startup's ear. In today's ruling, the court said that tests used by the Federal Circuit court of Appeals -- the bench responsible for straightening out patent messes -- aren't strong enough. Putting a stronger emphasis on the test of whether a "person having ordinary skill in the art" would find the patented idea an obvious leap or an extraordinary one. It's hard to say yet how much of an impact this ruling will have on the tech sector but, it's certainly a step in the right direction.

We think it's high time for a patent party in the streets. Who's got the booze?

It looks like a federal appeals court has issued a permanent stay on a lower court ruling banning Vonage from signing up new customers.

Earlier this year a jury found that Vonage's internet telephony service violates patents held by Verizon, kicking off a whole slew of legal troubles for Vonage.

Today's ruling came just two hours after the appeals court heard arguments from the two sides.

The stay only applies while Vonage is appealing the initial ruling. If Vonage loses the appeal, the company could be finished. That said, Vonage stock jumped closed to 50% today on the first good news the company's had in months.

So you know how new computer hardware sometimes doesn't even come with a printed manual anymore, because the whole thing is on a CD, or even the web? Yeah, that last part's getting called into question.

Disc Link, a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies Group (an organization that basically buys up patents so that it can sue anyone who violates them), claims that it's patent number 6,314,574 covers hyperlinks from documents stored on a CD that send users to sites on the web.

Last week, Disc Link filed suit against Borland, Business Objects, Compuware, Corel, Eastman Kodak, Novell, Oracle, and SAP, claiming they all violate its patent.


[via Techdirt]

Remember how Vonage said it would try to find a way to continue providing internet telephone service to customers without violating Verizon's patent? Yeah, that might not work.

Last month, a federal jury found that Vonage's VoIP technology violated patents held by Verizon. A judge ordered Vonage to stop signing up new customers, but that order was stayed pending appeal.

Now it looks like all of Vonage's eggs are in that appeals basket. Because the company says Verizon's patent is so broad that it might not be possible to pass phone calls between the internet and telephone lines without violating (or licensing) Verizon's intellectual property.

On Friday, Vonage filed documents that suggest it would take months to set up a technical workaround -- if one could even be found. The company predicts (probably correctly) that its current customers would not stick around waiting for such a workaround to be found.

[via Techdirt]

A federal judge has given internet telephony company Vonage two weeks to stop using technologies that infringe on voice over IP patents held by Verizon.

Earlier this month, a jury found that Vonage had violated Verizon's patents. Vonage lawyers tried to argue that any harm to Verizon was outweighed by the public good of providing competition in the telephone industry. An appeal is likely.

In the meantime, Vonage says customers should not expect interruptions in service. It's not clear if that means the company expects the two week stay to be extended pending appeal, or if Vonage is readying new technologies that don't violate Verizon's patents.

[via GigaOM]

It's not question that the United States patent system has got some issues. So what's the latest proposal by the US Patent and Trademark Office? Recruit the wisdom of the masses.

A pilot project launching soon will put patent applications up on the web, allowing visitors to the site to post comments. There'll also be a rating system for comments, pushing the most popular comments to the top of the list. In other words, users who visit Digg, Netscape, and other social news web sites will find the process pretty familiar, and could play a role in approving or rejecting patents.

The first items to go online will be about 250 patent applications related to software design. That's a field where it's quite likely that many visitors to the web site will have greater expertise than the patent officers reviewing the applications.

The news of Microsoft's techslap -- handed down by a San Diego court to the tune of $1.5 Billion dollars in damages as penalty for Mp3 patent infringement -- may have been greeted by cheering Microsoft bashers but, the size and scope of the settlement re-opens the wounds of a US patent system gone horribly wrong.

The case in question dates back to 2003, and its settlement cost could have been three times larger if the court ruled the infringement to be willful. Microsoft in fact did have a license to use the Mp3 encoding technology, from German company Fraunhofer, who co-developed the Mp3 specification in tandem with Lucent's forefather, Bell Labs. Microsoft's license to Fraunhofer for the same intellectual property cost only $16 Million; The California settlement is equal to 93 times the original cost of that license.

Patent cases in the US are spiraling out of control. Last year it cost RIM over $600 million dollars to settle the lawsuit against its Blackberry devices and, to make matters worse, new and more esoteric patents are being issued all the time. If left unsolved by the politicians, where does this insane patent spiral lead us in the long term?

In a hard-fought battle, RealNetworks appears to have won a major patent victory to protect their technology. This is a patent that already faced a struggle with the Patent Office itself, just to get filed in 1999 (and it took 5 years to do that). But it now looks like the "streaming through a congested network" magic is owned by RealNetworks... Despite a previous patent by Apple for the same thing used in QuickTime. Personally, I always thought Real had better streaming, QuickTime had better downloadable quality. The billion-dollar question: who cares? Will this really affect Real's bottom line? Rob Glaser (CEO of Real) has essentially said he's not going to go after the "big hair porcupines" in the industry using the technology. Hm, that would probably be Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe. Who does that leave, YouTube? Developers aren't rolling their own codecs, for the most part, these days. During the go-go 90's I saw all sorts of wacky streaming implementations, but you don't hear a lot about this now that broadband keeps growing. You do hear about different protocols (like Bittorrent) for moving data, but streaming tech this old doesn't get headlines. Yet that appears to be what Glaser is hoping for, as in the New York Times he's quoted as saying, "We're hoping that people will say, 'Oh, I get it,' and that this will boost the identity of Helix." Well Rob, one can dream, eh? This sounds a little like those patent-to-profitability games dying tech companies play. They're bleeding money after innovating, so they sue everyone on old patents to make some cash. Sounds like Real doesn't want to play that game, but will they have to?