You know, we’ll actually be a little sad when the endless legal battle between Nokia and Qualcomm actually comes to an end — but until then, we’re going to revel in all the dirt that comes out of having over a dozen simultaneous lawsuits going worldwide. Nokia now says that it owes Qualcomm nothing for its “early” CDMA patents, because it’s dropped a cool billion dollars into license payments for them over the past 15 years and those deals have expired, so it’s in the clear now. As you might expect, Qualcomm disagrees, and says that if Nokia wants to keep using its tech, it’s got to pay up — that’s on top of the estimated $500 million a year Nokia’s already paying Qualcomm for other patents. Guys, guys, why fight like this? What’s a couple billion a year between friends? Video summary of the entire dispute after the break.
Sure, we’ve heard RIAA-admiring lawyers affirm that ripping your own CDs is in fact “stealing,” but it seems the aforementioned entity is putting its money where its mouth is in a case against Jeffrey Howell. Reportedly, the Scottsdale, Arizona resident is being sued by the RIAA, and rather than Mr. Howell just writing a check and calling it a day, he’s fighting back in court. Interestingly, it seems that the industry is maintaining that “it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into their computer.” Ira Schwartz, the industry’s lawyer in the case, is arguing that MP3 files created on his computer from legally purchased CDs are indeed “unauthorized copies,” and while we’ve no idea what will become of all this, we suppose you should go on and wipe those personal copies before you too end up in handcuffs.
Update: We got some more info on the case — it looks like Jeffrey’s actually being sued for illegal downloading, not ripping, but this whole “ripping is illegal” tactic is still pretty distasteful. Check out this post for the full story.
After just a few months of legal wrangling, Kodak and Matsushita have settled their patent lawsuit, originally brought by Kodak due to Matsushita’s alleged infringement of a number of digital camera-related patents. The two companies have agreed to cross-license each other’s patents, but it’s not all sharing and cupcakes — the agreement is “royalty-bearing to Kodak,” according to documents filed with the SEC. That was fast — guess Kodak’s new strategy of aggressively enforcing its IP portfolio is working out after all.
A laptop is a must for everyone now. This is why refurbished laptops are selling like hot buns. However, they often have laptop batteries with short lives If wanting to avoid this problem and yet not spend a fortune on the notebook, toshiba laptops may be your answer.
Subscribe to RSS