Lawsuit Suite:Transformer Prime, BlackBerry Messenger, HTC/iPhone & Motorola/Microsoft

As the world spreads holiday cheer, technology companies are busy battling trademark and patent infotainment cases in court. The wireless world has been involved in a suite of lawsuits and legal battles recently, including RIM, Asus, HTC, iPhone and Motorola. Asus Transformer Prime Primed for Infringement of Hasbro Transformer Toys & More The most popular tablet of the holidays is the Asus Transformer Prime. Hasbro, the maker of the Transformer toys doesn't like the trademark infringement by Asus. Hasbro has filed a suit against Asus for the use of the "Transformer" name. Hasbro is suing Asus for trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trademark dilution. Hasbro is asking for financial damages and an order preventing Asus form using the "Transformer" name, which has been used for a line of tiny robotic toys since 1984. The toys are then featured in comic books, cartoons and motion pictures. "Hasbro continues to aggressively protect its brands and products and the specific actions we are taking today against Asus underscores yet again Hasbro's willingness to pursue companies who misappropriate our intellectual property for their own financial gain," the company said in a statement quoted in various news reports. Trademark Blues for BlackBerry RIM is being sued by BBM Canada, a sixt-year old broadcasting association for using BBM for the BlackBerrry Messenger. RIM's response included the following: "Since its launch in July 2005, the BlackBerry Messenger has become a tremendously popular social networking service. In 2010, RIM started to formally adopt the BBM acronym, which had, at that point, already been organically coined and widely used by BlackBerry Messenger customers as a natural abbreviation of the BlackBerry Messenger name." Apple/HTC Win/Win? HTC called their loss a win in the 647 patent infringement case in which the International Trade Commission ruled that HTC was copying some elements of the iPhone. HTC said they have removed the infringing feature. Apple's patent (647 patent) is for data detection that enables users to tap on a telephone number or address contained in an e-mail to immediately call the number or find the address on a map. Apple Photo Patent vs. Motorola Android Motorola and Apple are in a patent "war of attribution" in a German court for the "zoom in" mode in the Android photo gallery in relation to a photo patent. Experts expect Motorola to remove the offending features. Legal M & Ms - Microsoft and Motorola Microsoft won a small victory in a preliminary ruling by the ITC. ITC found that Motorola's Android devices infringed on aspects of a Microsoft patent, even though Motorola did not violate six of the seven patents. A final decision will be made in April 2012.

Cablevision and Verizon settle broadband speed ad lawsuit

Despite some strong rhetorical volleys, Cablevision and Verizon have settled their lawsuit over Verizon's broadband speeds ads which Cablevision argued were misleading. The central issue was Verizon's depiction of an FCC study which detailed slow speeds on Cablevision's network — although the study had been conducted in March and was published in August, Verizon's ads described it as "just released." Since that time, Cablevision had made progress in upgrading and improving its network, hence the lawsuit. Neither company provided details on the settlement beyond saying that they had "reached an agreement to resolve this dispute without further need for litigation." However, Reuters notes that Verizon told the court it would alter its ads to remove references to "new" and "recent." More to the point, the ads are no longer running, though not necessarily as a direct result of the suit or settlement. Verizon spokesman Bill Kula told FierceCable that the ads "ran their course, and ended Dec. 17th." Assuming the company's next campaign doesn't include references to the FCC's report, this little saga has come to a quiet close.