(Bloomberg ) Squeezed out of the mobile-phone market by trendier offerings, Nokia Oyj (NOK1V), Ericsson AB (ERICB) and other one-time leaders are selling chunks of their patent portfolios, often to the litigious licensing firms the industry has derided.
The companies are being driven by their need for greater profit, and are finding that with changing business models, tough economics and investor pressure, there is little reason to hold on to patents for computer memory, wireless infrastructure and other technology that can still fetch good prices.
Ericsson, Panasonic Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. sold almost 5,000 patents in the first quarter combined, according to Innography Inc., an Austin, Texas-based maker of software to analyze patent portfolios. Nokia on July 7 said it had sold a group of phone patents to licensing company Wi-Lan Inc.
Picking up the pieces are licensing firms whose sole mission is to buy castoff patents and then demand royalties from other companies in a strategy to make a profit.
Trademark
Apple May Fight Copycat Stores With Trademarks, EU Court Says
Apple Inc. (AAPL) may be able to seek a German trademark that would stop retailers mimicking the layout of its flagship stores, the European Union's top court said.
Apple can try to register an image of its store layout if it can show that it can distinguish its goods from others, the EU Court of Justice said. Apple is challenging a refusal by the German patent office to accept the picture as a trademark. A national court will decide the final details of the appeal.
The Cupertino, California-based maker of iPads and iPhones registered a U.S. three-dimensional trademark for the design of its stores in January, according to the Los Angeles Times.
AB InBev Buys Brewer in Budweiser Rival's Czech Home
Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI), the world's largest beer maker and the brewer of Budweiser, bought a brewery in the hometown of Budejovicky Budvar, a rival it has battled over trademark rights for more than a century.
InBev bought Pivovar Samson a.s. and is considering expanding the brewer's Budweiser brand, the company said in a statement without disclosing the details of the deal. Through the takeover, InBev acquires beer production in the Czech Republic city of Ceske Budejovice, known as Budweis in German, which is the source of the name claimed by both it and Budvar.
Each brewer has won or lost the right in rulings in different countries to use brands linked to the city's name.
Copyright
Getty Images Demands Fee From Blogger for Unlicensed Photo Use
A resident of a Portland, Oregon, suburb says Getty Images Inc. is demanding that she pay a $926 fee for using a photo of dogs on her blog, ABC television's Portland affiliate KATU reported on its website.
The blogger said that although she removed the image immediately, she didn't pay the initial demand of $480, and Getty escalated it to $926, according to KATU.
Seattle-based Getty sent KATU a statement saying that the blogger's site advertises a real estate broker and needed a license to use the image, and that the demand was increased because the matter had to be referred to outside counsel.
Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage
Yahoo Hacks Highlight Cyber Onslaught Japan Rushing to Thwart
Shortly after the alert sounded at 9:10 p.m., Yahoo Japan Corp. (4689)'s risk team knew it had a problem. More than 20 million usernames and passwords belonging to its customers were being dumped into a file, primed to be stolen.
The April 2013 breach of Yahoo Japan was an attempt to grab the user identities of the nation's most visited website.
Now, after a series of hacks on targets from the nation's space agency and its largest defense contractor to Bitcoin exchange operator Mt. Gox, Japan's government is set to pass a law in fall to beef up cybersecurity in the world's third-largest economy. Less than 25 percent of Japanese companies have a business continuity plan in case of a cyber-attack, according to the National Information Security Center, a government agency.
The proposed new law would name NISC as the central cybersecurity coordinator reporting directly to Japan's Cabinet, said Takuya Hirai, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who drafted the bill.
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