The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics has abusively, and in contravention of a commitment it gave to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets, in breach of EU antitrust rules. The opening of proceedings means that the Commission will examine the case as a matter of priority. It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation.

In 2011, Samsung sought injunctive relief in various Member States' courts against competing mobile device makers based on alleged infringements of certain of its patent rights which it has declared essential to implement European mobile telephony standards. The Commission will investigate, in particular, whether in doing so Samsung has failed to honour its irrevocable commitment given in 1998 to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to license any standard essential patents relating to European mobile telephony standards on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. The Commission will examine whether such behaviour amounts to an abuse of a dominant position prohibited by Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU).

RealNetworks, Inc. today announced that it has signed an agreement to sell a significant number of its patents and its next generation video codec software to Intel Corporation for a purchase price of $120 million. Under terms of the sale, RealNetworks retains certain rights to continue to use the patents in current and future products.

"Selling these patents to Intel unlocks some of the substantial and unrealized value of RealNetworks assets," said Thomas Nielsen, RealNetworks President and CEO. "It represents an extraordinary opportunity for us to generate additional capital to boost investments in new businesses and markets while still protecting our existing business.

This is an official public statement from Lamptron regarding the unauthorized use of Lamptron intellectual property to reproduce substandard copies of Lamptron products. We appreciate the time invested by online media sources and consumers who have assisted in reporting on this matter. Here at Lamptron we strive for the best in product quality and customer service, and it is with this practice in mind that we are making this official statement regarding the unauthorized use of Lamptron property.

As of January 2012 we have been made aware of the presence of imitation products designed to mimic the look and function of official Lamptron brand products on the retail market. These reproductions have been made with unauthorized use of Lamptron production parts and designs, along with competing materials that may or may not be made of the same quality as used by official Lamptron production parts.

Some time in June 2010, Apple filed a patent application for a unique new facial-recognition technology that's light on the resources. It was discovered by AppleInsider. Entitled "Low Threshold Face Recognition," the application defines a method of recognizing a person using a front-facing camera of a device (could be anything from an iPhone, iPad, to even a Mac or Macbook), that consumes very little system resources, and is hence light on the device's power source.

It could very well be an evolution of the "Slide to Unlock" mechanism found on iOS devices, and conventional password entry to wake Macs up. If granted, this technology comes to being at a particularly important time, when a similar technology evolving out of Android Face Unlock, and when facial-recognition will be a key feature of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, to log into systems and wake devices up from their e-slumbers. Apple's proposed technology relies on analyzing a "high information portion" portion of the human face, rather than using the conventional resource-heavy method of recognition. Apple claims its technology will be just as reliable.

If you're Rambus then this is the season to be… making money through settlements. That's right, the XDR creator has scored a new out-of-court victory as Broadcom has agreed to sign a patent license agreement that spans five years.

"We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Broadcom, a global leader in the semiconductor industry," said Sharon Holt, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Business Group at Rambus. "We are committed to continuing the development of innovative technologies to help our licensees deliver great products to the market."

These holidays are being quite kind to Apple as after over a year and a half of investigating, the US ITC (International Trade Commission) has ruled that HTC has indeed violated two of its patents. According to the ITC ruling, HTC is infringing on patents No. 5,946,647 which covering a 'system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data' and No. 6,343, 263 relating to a 'real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data'.

As a result of this decision the ITC will be issuing an exclusion order (beginning April 19, 2012) that will prevent US imports of infringing HTC Android devices (the ITC didn't specify which products are affected by this).