Patents

A federal jury in California has cleared Google of allegations that it infringed on two patents held by software firm Oracle, in the design of its Android mobile operating system, Bloomberg reports.

"Today's jury verdict that Android does not infringe Oracle's patents was a victory not just for Google but the entire Android ecosystem," Catherine Lacavera, Google's director of litigation, said in a statement.

The verdict ends the second phase of a three-part intellectual property trial that is apparently not going well for Oracle. The software company filed suit in August 2010, seeking as much as $6 billion in damages, alleging that Google had infringed on its copyrights and patents in designing Android.

"Oracle presented overwhelming evidence at trial that Google knew it would fragment and damage Java," said Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger.

The copyright phase of the trial ended with a finding of infringement, but with the jury divided on whether Google's "fair use" claim to the material was valid. There could be a new trial to decide the fair use issue. Without a finding against Google on this issue, Oracle is substantially limited in the damages it can seek.

Also on the horizon is a ruling from U.S. District Judge William Alsup on the question of whether the Java programming language, which was at issue in the case, is subject to copyright law.

T-Mobile's CEO won't comment on reports that the wireless carrier is exploring a merger with smaller rival Metro PCS, Dow Jones reports.

With help from Facebook and others, Microsoft is set to revamp its Bing search engine, The New York Times reports.

Google is echoing complaints that Microsoft is limiting other search engines from operating on devices that run Microsoft's new version of Windows, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Foxconn and Apple will divvy up the costs of making it nicer to work at the notorious China facilities that make iProducts, according to Reuters.

Twitter takes on patent trolls, the Wall Street Journal reports.

All of today's e-Reads can be found on our Tech Page.

Twitter is investigating how 55,000 user passwords were leaked and posted online, Yahoo News reports.

Google has filed a motion for a mistrial in its patent dispute with Oracle, Wired reports.

The investor who revealed that Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson had lied on his resume is now calling for his dismissal, the Mercury News reports.

The New York Times examines why the chiefs of Sprint and AT&T appear to have different outlooks on the industry's prospects.

Reuters examines whether Americans share too much personal information about themselves.

All of today's e-reads can be found on our Tech Page.

Google CEO Larry Page was grilled on the stand at the trial over Oracle's patent lawsuit against Google related to its Android mobile phone software, according to the Associated Press.

Bloomberg details how the CEOs of Yahoo and Google have been bragging not about the new products they've launched but about ones they've killed.

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion fired back against an app maker that stopped work on an app for the BlackBerry because of a slide in the device's popularity, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In a rare move, Google revealed details about the inner workings of its data center network, The New York Times reports.

Find all of today's e-Reads on our Tech Page.

As companies battle over control of the technology used in some of the hottest devices and websites, leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee say they fear patents could be used to stifle competition.

Rather than resolving patent disputes in court, some companies may use trade laws to inappropriately block other companies' patents, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., said in a letter to the Justice Department on Thursday.

Tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Google have increasingly sought to protect their businesses by buying up troves of patents; acquiring other companies; and launching legal battles.

Yahoo, for example, is taking Facebook to court over alleged patent infringement.

But some practices could be anti-competitive, Leahy and Kohl warned. Asking the International Trade Commission to completely block use of a certain patent, rather than working out a compromise, poses "a significant threat to competition and innovation," the lawmakers wrote.

The Justice Department raised the concern when it approved Google's plan to buy Motorola in February. The department also approved requests from Apple, Microsoft, and Research in Motion to buy patents from Nortel.

Leahy and Kohl said they had no position on the deals but said they highlight the potential for companies to use patents against each other. They urged the department to be "vigilant in monitoring the anti competitive use" of patents.

Too many tax-payer funded technologies are being taken by China or other countries, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., says, and on Friday he reintroduced a bill to stop the flow.

In order to operate in China, for example, American companies are often forced to hand over their intellectual property and proprietary. Many of those technologies are developed using taxpayer money through grant, loans, or other incentives, Webb said in a statement.

"If taxpayers supported the development of the technology, they own a piece of it and it can't just be given away," Webb said. "Federal dollars that go toward R&D funding, loan guarantees, and public-private partnerships in order to help develop the next generation of technologies here are supposed to be making American businesses competitive and generate American jobs -- not to help develop other industries, such as those in China."

Webb's bill would prohibit companies from transferring technology to countries that require such transfers as a cost of doing business.

"The transfer of publicly supported proprietary technologies by American firms to China -- and potentially other countries -- clearly and unequivocally places the competitive advantage of the American economy at risk," Webb said.

A range of companies say the latest continuing resolution proposed in Congress lacks promised language designed to prevent appropriators from raiding fees paid to the Patent and Trademark Office.

ISeveral groups that advocate on a behalf of both large and small companies complained that the CR undermines the gentleman's agreement that allowed the landmark patent reform bill to be passed earlier this month.

In a compromise with House appropriators, the sponsors of the America Invents Act agreed to strip out language that prohibited Congress from allocating patent fees to different programs.

"Unfortunately, now, just days after the enactment of the act, we are deeply concerned to learn that the CR does not contain the promised language," the Innovation Alliance, which represents a range of smaller tech companies, wrote in a letter to leaders in the Senate and the House. "We strongly believe that for the reforms to work as intended, the promised language ending fee diversion must be included in all bills making appropriations for the USPTO."

In a letter of its own, the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, which includes companies like Johnson & Johnson and General Electric, pointed out that even if Congress doesn't actually take patent fees for other purposes, without the language, the PTO cannot access new fees.

"Unless an anomaly is included in the CR, the USPTO will lose $50 million each month the CR is in effect," the letter said. "The problem is that during the 7 weeks of the CR, the USPTO is held to a spending rate based on last year's appropriations - this rate ignores the fact that the USPTO will be collecting significantly more fees to support implementation of the act."

The America Invents Act was signed by President Obama on Friday and is the most significant reform of the U.S. patent system in about 60 years.

The Intellectual Property Owners Association also sent a letter urging lawmakers to include the language in the latest CR.

President Obama signed the America Invents Act into law on Friday, enacting the most expansive reforms to the U.S. patent system in almost 60 years.

Ahead of the ceremony at an Alexandria high school, White House officials played up Obama's role in breaking the logjam of disagreement that had scuttled earlier attempts at patent reform.

Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, told reporters on Thursday that when companies admitted that they agreed on 80 percent of reform proposals, Obama encouraged them to resolve the remaining disagreement.

The bill, which passed Congress overwhelmingly, has been trumpeted as a key way to help businesses create more jobs.

"It's about turning American ingenuity into American jobs," said David Kappos, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, on a conference call with reporters on Thursday. He said the bill would help his agency approve patent applications much faster.

Kappos said new funding could help him hire 1,500 to 2,000 more patent examiners, further helping the PTO keep up with the flow of patent applications.

Businesses remained somewhat divided over the final patent reform bill, but most agreed that it was a step in the right direction.

"The signing of the America Invents Acts into law today will help to rev up the engine of American innovation, improving the patent system and giving greater assurance to our nation's inventors," Christopher Padilla, IBM vice president of Governmental Programs, said in a statement.

Among other changes, the bill transitions the United States to a "first-to-file" system, under which the inventor who files an application first is awarded a patent.

Members of a House Judiciary subcommittee probed experts on patent law Thursday as the House prepares to introduce its own version of patent reform legislation.

Earlier this week the Senate passed a bill aimed at finally overhauling a patent system which hasn't been significantly changed in almost 60 years. House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, has said he anticipates a House bill sometime this month, and at Thursday's hearing, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., shared his confidence.

"I'm optimistic that we can get a bipartisan, bicameral bill on the president's desk in the near future," said Goodlatte, chairman of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet.

The subcommittee called three witnesses to testify on recent judicial rulings on patent cases. Some observers have said parts of the current patent legislation are unnecessary because of case law developed by courts, and at least some witnesses agreed.

"It is clear that the courts are addressing these issues, using the tools and the guidance that Congress has provided in the patent statute in order to adapt the law to the current needs and concerns of innovators," wrote Dan Burk, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, in his written testimony. "The process of adoption takes some time, but the necessary tools to make the needed changes are already provided in the statute as it exists today." In fact, he said, often only the courts are dynamic enough to respond to changes in innovation and the economy.

Dennis Crouch, an associate law professor at the University of Missouri, said patent law is much less detailed than copyright law, and therefore gives courts more leeway for interpretation. And, he added, "I certainly don't see that as a problem."

But does that amount to judicial activism? "By no means," Burk said. "If anything, it appears the courts may sometimes be overly cautious in exercising the latitude that they have been granted under the current statute."

Some confusion has arisen in the past because courts haven't followed Congress's direction, said Andrew Pincus, a partner at the Washington, D.C.-based firm Mayer Brown, who testified on behalf of the Business Software Alliance. But despite past "imbalances" in the law, he said, "as a result of this judicial activity, the legal standards governing patent litigation are in a much better state than they were when this committee first led the charge on patent reform."

While courts have established some precedent on issues such as venue, damages and willfulness, the witnesses stressed that only congressional action can decide many of the patent system's issues, including funding for the Patent and Trademark Office and moving to a first-to-file system.

Who says bipartisanship is dead? After years of debate and failed attempts, the Senate passed patent-reform legislation on Tuesday evening by a 95-5 vote, approving a bill that was at the top of President Obama's innovation agenda.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who sponsored the legislation, touted it as a model of how Congress could come together to stimulate the economy.

The bill gathered wide, bipartisan support in the Senate, but the path ahead remains unclear. Several powerful business groups, as well some conservative activists, are opposed to some of the measure's provisions.

The Republican-controlled House, which now takes up the patent issue, has not fully outlined its plans. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who helped author the Senate bill, said he expects the process to go to conference.

If enacted, the legislation would be the first major overhaul of the patent system in more than half a century.