More bad news for Microsoft, who again was found guilty of willfully infringing on i4i's patents, this time by the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals.

Microsoft is quickly running out of avenues. This latest verdict is the second time an appeals court affirmed i4i's patent win, which requires Redmond to fork over more than $240 million in damages, as well as remove a feature in versions of Microsoft Word 2007 that lets people create custom XML documents.

"A reasonable jury could have concluded that Microsoft 'willfully' infringed the 449 patents based on teh evidence present at the trial," the judges wrote. "Similarly, there is no evidence Microsoft ever made a good faith effort to avoid infringement, internal emails show Microsoft intended to render i4i's product 'obsolete' and assure 'there won't be a need for [i4i's] product.'"

So is it time to throw in the towel? Not quite. According to InfoWorld.com, the panel will now circulate the document to the rest of the judges on the appeals court, who will then decide whether honor Microsoft's request for an en banc review. If the request is approved, all 12 appeals court judges will reconsider the case.

"From our perspective, there are only so many more avenues for appeals for them," said Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i.

Transcend can now focus all of its attention on putting out products rather than worrying about defending itself in court. That's because the memory maker said it has received notification from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin that rival SanDisk has withdrawn its patent infringement lawsuit.

The suit dates back to October 2007 when SanDisk went on a suing spree, accusing 25 companies of patent infringement through three separate lawsuits. These were all companies that either made, sold, or imported USB flash drives and other memory related products.

SanDisk had sought both damages and a permanent exclusion order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) banning importation of the products in the U.S.

It's unclear whether SanDisk dropped its patent suit against all 25 companies or just Transcend.

Image Credit: Flickr Joe Gratz

RealNetworks tried to fight the good fight against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), but in the end, someone had to lose, and that someone is RealNetworks.

A U.S. District Judge has issued a permanent injunction barring RealNetworks from selling RealDVD, the company's controversial DVD copying software. In addition, the two sides reached a settlement offer that will also have RealNetworks forking over $4.5 million to the movie studios to pay for legal fees.

"We are gratified by the successful conclusion of this important matter," said Daniel Mandil, the MPAA's general counsel. "Judge Patel's rulings and this settlement affirm waht we have said from the very start of this litigation: it is illegal to bypass the copyright protections built into DVDs designed to protect movies against theft."

Pursuing the case further likely would have cost the company in excess of $10 million, no doubt a deciding factor in conceding defeat and agreeing to the settlement, no matter how much we might not like it.

"We are pleased to put this litigation behind us," said Bob Kimball, president and acting CEO for Real. "This is another step toward fulfilling our commitment to simplify our company and focus on our core businesses. Until this dispute, Real had always enjoyed a productive working relationship with Hollywood. With this litigation resolved, I hope that in the future we can find mutually beneficial ways to use Real technology to bring Hollywood's great work to consumers."

Is Microsoft waging a proxy legal war against Google? The answer is a big fat yes, if Google's Ohio-based attorney Mark Sheriff is to be believed. The war is being waged on many fronts and Google finds itself beset by lawsuits, allegedly backed by Microsoft, in both the U.S and Europe. According to a Wall Street Journal report, there is evidence to suggest that Microsoft is slyly aiding Google's rivals in court.

A recent 24-page antitrust lawsuit against Google by an Ohio-based internet site is a case in point. Although on the face of it nothing seems amiss – a small firm countering Google's lawsuit with a complaint of its own, the plot thickens the moment the name of one Charles “Rick” Rule crops up as the small internet firm's legal counsel. Charles Rule, an attorney with the D.C law firm Cadwalader, counts Microsoft among his illustrious clients. He is also representing another small firm against Google in a separate lawsuit.

"It's not every day that a big D.C. law firm like Cadwalader gets involved in a collections lawsuit in Ohio,” Google attorney Mark Sheriff told the Wall Street Journal. In Europe, a series of antitrust complaints from various companies, including one of Microsoft's German subsidiaries, is also cited as part of Microsoft's legal war with Google. The European Commission has ordered a preliminary inquiry against Google after taking cognizance of the anti-trust complaints. What does Microsoft stand to gain from all this?

Google has an answer. “It's become clear that our competitors are scouring court dockets around the world looking for complaints against Google into which they can inject themselves, learn more about our business practices, and use that information to develop a broader antitrust complaint against us,” said a Google spokesman, Adam Kovacevich.

But Microsoft is quick to rubbish all such allegations. It contends that Google's business practices have caused a great deal of resentment among its rivals. And that the lawsuits are a result of widespread indignation and not of some Microsoft intrigue.

Image Credit: EQSOFT.NET

in basketball, a shooter sometimes gets into a 'zone,' a mental state where everything's going for them and they just can't miss a shot. This is exactly the place Rambus finds itself in, only in a different kind of court, and a different game altogether. The latest opponent to go down against Rambus is Nvidia, who a judge ruled was guilty of violating three patents belonging to Rambus.

"We are pleased with the initial determination from the ITC finding two patents invalid but disappointed about its ruling on the other three patents," David Shannon, Nvidia's executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. "All five of the patents continue to be subject to re-examination proceedings in the Patent and Trademark Office, in which the Office has consistently found the asserted claims of these patents to be invalid. We will now take the patents before the full commission for a final decision on whether any of these patents are valid, enforceable, and infringed."

While it remains to be seen if the verdict will stick and, if it does, what the patents will be worth, the legal momentum has clearly shifted in Rambus' favor. Less than a week ago, the company came to a $900 million settlement agreement with Samsung, in which Samsung will pay $200 million right away, and the remainder over the course of five years.

Minnesota resident Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, was thrust into the public eye in 2006, when the music industry chose her for the most unenviable role imaginable: the poster girl of the brand of digital piracy that the average Joe practices from the comforts of his home. Several record companies sued her for copyright infringement  on April 19, 2006.

Though the court originally ordered Thomas-Rasset to pay a fine of $220,000, the fine was raised to a vertiginous $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song, at a retrial. She was now left with a three-pronged hope: a court will scrap the fine or at least lower it; or a bankruptcy court will pave the way for her escape; or she will land a major book deal.

But she can now heave a sigh of relief as a U.S. District court has lowered the fine to relatively manageable levels. Michael Davis, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, lowered the fine to $54,000. "The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music," the Judge remarked in his verdict.

The decision leaves the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) with seven days to either accept the fresh fine or request a retrial. Joe Sibley, one of the defendant's attorneys, told Cnet that the judge had made “it much more equitable and this was much closer to the $0 award that we were seeking."

Cnet's Greg Sandoval has learnt from his sources that RIAA is not too keen on taking this any further as it only wanted to use the case as a deterrent. Sandoval also reminds everyone that Thomas-Rasset's  refusal to settle with RIAA left it with no choice but to drag her to court.

Jammie in Grimmer Times

Image Credit: Wired

If at first you don't succeed, sue, sue again. The reason? You might score a $900 million settlement, just as sue-happy Rambus did after years of litigation over memory patents. And this could be just the beginning, but more on that in a moment.

Under terms of the agreement, Samsung will pay Rambus $200 million upfront, followed by quarterly payments in the neighborhood of $25 million over five years. Samsung also agreed to purchase $200 million worth of Rambus stock, bringing the final tally to $900 million.

The settlement puts to rest a long-standing dispute over DRAM technology licenses, and going forward, the two companies have agreed to collaborate on a new generation of memory technologies, including graphics and mobile memory, and potentially server and high-speed NAND flash chips, CNet reports.

While this represents a major payday for Rambus, there could be more to come. The company is still going after Micron, Hynix, and Nanya.

Microsoft isn't yet finished fighting what it considers the good fight and has filed a second appeal in its patent case against i4i. According to Microsoft, the original judgment could set a dangerous precedent for future patent cases, TGDaily reports.

The dispute stems from August of last year, in which Microsoft was found guilty of violating an XML patent held by Toronto-based i4i. Microsoft was then banned from selling or importing into the U.S. any Word products capable of opening .xml, .docx, or .docm files containing custom XML. Microsoft would appeal, but lost its case in December.

In this second appeal, Microsoft contends that "the December 22 decision creates [significant conflicts] with established precedents governing trial procedure and the determination of damages, and we are concerned that the decision weakens judges' authority to apply appropriate safeguards in future patent trials."

i4i wasn't caught off guard by the latest appeal, saying "this next step of seeking a rehearing was anticipated."

Image Credit: Flickr Joe Gratz

This will sound all too familiar to anyone who followed the Jammie Thomas saga, but once again, a convicted file sharer's legal team feels the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

The comments stem from the nation's second file sharing defendant to take the RIAA to court. By doing so, Joel Tenenbaum was ultimately fined $22,500 per song for a total of $675,000 in damages for infringing 30 songs.

"Given that fact that Tenenbaum was one of many millions of people sharing music and that the plaintiffs have failed to show any actual damages from Tenenbaum's particular actions, this award is obviously 'so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportionate to the offense and obviously unreasonable,'" wrote Charles Nesson, Tenenbaum's attorney.

The problem for Tenenbaum and Nesson is that they're clearly facing an uphill battle. Jammie Thomas, the first defendant to challenge the RIAA in court, also received a stiff penalty, only to have it increased to a whopping $1.92 million in appeals.

Taiwanese chip designer Richtek Technology said Wednesday it has filed a patent infringement complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) against several companies, including uPI Semiconductor, AMD, Sapphire Technology, Diamond Multimedia, and XFX.

Richtek claims the aforementioned graphic chip makers have infringed on three of the company's technology patents, as well as misusing business secrets. According to Fudzilla, the three patents deal with technologies for a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) circuit, a method for current balance in a mulit-phase DC-to-DC converter to produce a respective PWM signal to regulate the corresponding channel current, and for a power metal oxide semiconductor transistor layout comprised of a gate electrode with a lattice pattern on a substrate having a first area and a second area.

Richtek is seeking an injunction and compensation, but the company didn't say for how much.