Enlarge / Pharmaceutical bottles on a conveyor belt in South Africa. (credit: Westend61 / Getty Images) The Biden administration has thrown its weight behind an international effort to loosen patent and other legal protections for COVID vaccines. “The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver […]
Enlarge / Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Ultra, which includes a 5G modem. (credit: Ron Amadeo) Huawei plans to start charging big smartphone-makers like Samsung and Apple royalties for use of its various 5G-related patents, according to CNBC. Huawei is seeking to make up some of the losses it has experienced as a result of the US […]
Enlarge (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images) A Texas jury has ordered Intel to pay $2.18 billion in damages for infringing two patents. The lawsuit was filed by VLSI Technology LLC, a 4-year-old firm that Intel says has no products and no sources of revenue besides patent litigation. The patents at issue in the […]
I remember my first IBM patent. Granted to my colleagues and myself in 2005, it was for a topcoat waterproof material for a photoresist—a light-sensitive substance used to make circuit patterns for semiconductor chips. It was a proud moment for me—especially because I knew that this patent contained novel capabilities that were critical for a […]
IBM held its long-time place as the top recipient of U.S. patents in 2020 with 9,130 inventions, followed by Samsung, Canon and Microsoft. Others in the top 10 include Apple and Intel, according to research firm IFI. While the total number of issued patents dropped slightly from a record of 354,428 in 2019, published patent […]