Posts Tagged: "Apps"

Antitrust Suit Filed by 36 State AGs Targets Google Anticompetitive Practices on Android App Distribution

Last week, the attorneys general of 36 U.S. states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against internet services and mobile operating system (OS) provider Google. The complaint lists various causes of action under the Sherman Antitrust Act and a number of state antitrust laws that have allegedly been violated by Google’s practices in leveraging its monopoly power in the mobile OS sector to maximize its revenues on app purchases through the Google Play Store through suppression of competing app platforms and charging exorbitant fees from app developers.

Steve Brachmann

July 13, 2021

Google Maps update likely to feature text-based parking notification and more

Getting around may get a little bit easier for some drivers as Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) adds on new features to the 9.34 beta-release of Google Maps… Some of the methods protecting the technology behind the parking notification feature can be found in U.S. Patent No. 8484151. Predicting Parking Availability protects a method that, by first predicting the population density in an area and then applying it to a parking availability model, can estimate whether parking will be easy or hard. Because the parking availability model makes use of a function that predicts parking based on population density, the computer-stored information can then relate the parking availability to the user of the technology. This transfer of information was first envisioned as a layer over the map showing parking availability according to the patent’s abstract.

Benjamin Joe

August 31, 2016

What Your Smartphone Would Be Without Patents

Ask yourself for a moment, how does a smartphone fitting in the palm of my hand simultaneously download my emails while I watch high-definition YouTube videos of Felix Baumgartner jumping out of a hot air balloon, even as the smartphone figures where I am, where my work is, calculates the traffic delay and lets me know all this and stock quotes too while I keep watching the videos? I didn’t even mention the incoming text from my workout partner with an embedded picture of the beach where he is and I am not, captioned “WHERE R U?” And how can my smartphone do all that at the same time all my neighbors’ smartphones are using the same finite amount of radio frequency spectrum to accomplish the same tasks while they watch dog-shaming videos? The answer, however mundane it sounds, is as powerful as magic and just as invisible: high-data-rate wireless connections.

Roger Martin

April 8, 2014

Revolutionizing Prior Art Research: How Crowdsourcing Could Save the Angry Birds

The question may arise – what if the result of crowdsourcing is less than the proverbial “smoking gun,” can it place the App Developers at a disadvantage in court? Case law indicates that the answer is no. Last year, in a patent litigation brought by Personal Audio LLC, the plaintiff attempted to argue that their patent was valid based on crowdsourced research and to seek discovery on this basis. Personal Audio lost on both counts, with federal Judge Miriam Cedarbaum concluding, “eliminating a negative doesn’t show validity” and commenting on the patent owner’s approach with the statement “that’s what I call desperation.” Transcript of Oral Argument and Decision at 12-13 and 14, Personal Audio LLC v. Sirius XM Radio, Inc. et al, No. M8-85 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 2, 2010).

Cheryl Milone

October 7, 2011

App Developer Settles FTC Charges It Violated Children’s Privacy

A developer of mobile applications, including children’s games for the iPhone and iPod touch, will pay $50,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC’s COPPA Rule by illegally collecting and disclosing personal information from tens of thousands of children under age 13 without their parents’ prior consent. This is the Commission’s first case involving mobile applications, known as apps.

Gene Quinn

August 15, 2011