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Research In Motion is being sued for infringing a patent relating to Bluetooth. Wi-LAN, owner of US Patent 6,260,168, has filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida against RIM, and is seeking unspecified damages as well as preliminary and permanent injunctions on the sale of infringing RIM products.
A common source of mass patent violation lawsuits, Mosaid, was bought out on Friday by private equity group Sterling Partners. The deal, worth about $590 million Canadian ($594 million US), will see Sterling take on the task of managing 2,000 Nokia patents as well as the others that Mosaid owns. Both Nokia and its new mobile OS partner need to approve the deal, which should close if approved in December of January.
Mosaid in a statement Wednesday pressed share owners to turn down a second, $480 million Canadian ($488 million USD) buyout offer from Wi-LAN. Following an earlier deal, Mosaid claimed that the cash being offered was "clearly inadequate and highly opportunistic." It was even more so now that Mosaid was managing 2,000 Nokia patents through a takeover of Core Wireless, chairman Carl Schlachte said.
Wi-LAN continued its profiteering campaign on Friday by starting litigation against key computer and phone makers. The Ottawa firm targeted Apple, Alcatel-Lucent, Dell, HP, HTC, Kyocera, Novatel, and Sierra Wireless for all allegedly violating two patents, the first related to CDMA voice and HSPA 3G while the second touched on LTE 4G and Wi-Fi. As in most of its lawsuits, Wi-LAN is claiming damages but is known to be hoping for a settlement instead.
Toshiba has used IFA as the platform to announce its plans to introduce its first 8GB SDHC flash memory card with embedded wireless LAN functionality. The card, which will be a direct competitor to the Eye-Fi Pro X2, will become available in February 2012. The FlashAir memory card allows users to wireless transfer photos, rather than requiring the card to be removed and connected to a computer.
An offer of $480 CAD million ($490 million) by patent troll Wi-LAN directly to the shareholders of Mosaid Technologies, a similar company, has been proposed on Wednesday. Mosaid asked its shareholders on Thursday to ignore the offer, however, according to a recent report. Mosaid rejected an earlier, more direct offer from Wi-LAN.
Texas Instruments is the latest company to agree to settle a patent lawsuit with Canadian company Wi-LAN. TI is one of about 15 large tech companies that got named in a lawsuit that alleges these companies violate a patent Wi-LAN holds related to Bluetooth technology in electronic devices. The financial details of the settlement aren't being disclosed, however.
Wi-LAN this evening said the delay in its Wi-Fi lawsuit had borne fruit as it had made some settlement deals and expected more before the February 2 trial. It struck deals with 2Wire, Belkin, Lenovo, Marvell, Netgear and Westell over the past few weeks. It also anticipated that Apple, Dell, D-Link, HP, Sony and Toshiba would cave before Wednesday.
The Ottawa, Canada-based business Wi-LAN has added three more companies to a list of ongoing lawsuits, Reuters reports. It is now targeting three cellphone makers, specifically Motorola, UTStarcom, and BlackBerry creator Research in Motion. The companies are specifically accused of violating Wi-LAN patents, and litigation is already in progress at the Marshall Division of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The court is well known for ruling in favor of patent suit plaintiffs.
