Google has taken a valuable employee off of Uncle Sam’s hands, by hiring FTC’s patent specialist Suzanne Michel. She has been with the Federal Trade Commission for a good 11 years now, and her specialty was antitrust and patent issues, so we expect her to jump right smack in the whirlwind of Android litigation.

In fact, Suzanne Michel recently authored a report for the FTC, which gave an overview of the current patent system in the U.S. and what needs to be overhauled to actually promote innovation, instead of patent trolls.

Speaking of those little creatures, Samsung has supposedly been approached to entertaining a bid for InterDigital, which is another exemplary wireless patents holder. InterDigital’s CEO recently issued a memo that its collection of patents related to the wireless industry is even stronger than Nortel’s one, which received the largest ever patent portfolio payout of $4.5 billion.

We doubt that Samsung will be willing to spend north of $5 billion, as the rumored InterDigital asking price is, not to mention that Google, Apple and others are reported to also sniff around the company. A Google/Samsung combo, however, might do the trick. It’s good times for wireless patent holders – InterDigital had $17.2 million net income last quarter, and $5 billion for its patents surely sounds like a princely sum to the CEO.

Samsung is supposedly in the process of examining what exactly InterDigital keeps, so it might be willing to pick and choose some of the 8800 patents. In any case, the little green robot is apparently lining up a patent defense, which has to go a long way fending off the established competition.

source: Bloomberg & LATimes

Gameloft is one of the biggest gaming studios in the world, but now its profit is increasingly dependent on the mobile industry – the company’s titles for smartphones and tablets made up 30% of the total sales in the first half of the year. Tablet and smartphone Gameloft releases grew by 55% in sales in the first semester to reach some $32.7 million (23 million euro), and contributed to the developer’s consolidated sales of nearly $109.2 million. That’s an increase of 15% when compared to the same period last year. The biggest chunk of Gameloft’s sales fell on Europe with 33%, followed by North America with 28%.

The growth is set to continue in the second half of the year as Gameloft plans on releasing some twenty new titles for smartphones and tablets. The company also mentioned the growing importance of emerging markets and technologies like social network gaming and smart TVs.

Gameloft is the studio behind games like the Asphalt series and NOVA shooters, but it’s not the only company to ride the mobile wave. EA Sports has also suggested that with so many platforms all offering the same games, it might be a wise move to offer their gaming portfolio for one fixed price across different systems. Even if this doesn’t happen in the near future, though, mobile gaming seems to have established itself as a key factor, one that gaming producers can’t afford to ignore.

source: Gameloft via IntoMobile

Google, which has a traditionally good relationship with IBM, has bought from Big Blue 1030 patents covering stuff “from the fabrication and architecture of memory and microprocessing chips, to other areas of computer architecture including servers and routers as well. A number of the patents also cover relational databases, object oriented programming, and a wide array of business processes.”

While some of the patents listed involve databases and search queries, which is connected to Google’s bread-and-butter search business, a lot of those will no doubt be used to fend off the number of lawsuits by Apple and others against El Goog’s Android mobile OS, after the saga with the failed bid for Nortel’s patents.

Microsoft already made HTC pay it $5 for each Android handset they make, and is on the way to bend the N1 Android maker Samsung as well. Should Apple succeed with its HTC lawsuit, it could actually earn a pretty good chink of cash from that stream as well. Cupertino already had a preliminary decision that HTC is infringing on two of its patents, and is engaged in a neck-and-neck battle with Samsung over the same patents, so Bernstein’s analyst Toni Sacconaghi thinks Apple stands a viable chance to cash in on its IP property:

• “We anticipate that Apple will push its legal claims hard and unrelentingly and believe that the company’s key goal is to upend Android’s momentum by forcing a work around on key essential features which, if successful, could have huge, positive financial implications for Apple. Given that Apple appears to have more to lose in any one legal case than they might gain (since Apple ships a much higher value of smartphones than any other player), logic suggests that Apple feels confident in its odds of winning patent disputes it initiates. Should Apple prevail in forcing Android to rework some of its functionality, resulting in market share shifts, it could have huge, positive financial implications for Apple: we note that a 10 percentage point shift in smartphone market share from Android to Apple (the current run-rate smartphone market share is 46% for Android vs. 18% for Apple) in 2013 is worth an estimated $30B+ in annual revenue and $10+ in annual EPS to Apple.

• Apple appears to have the strong upper hand in its legal battle with HTC, but we see the current rulings as only a warm up bout. A second Apple suit against HTC – as well as separate suits against key Android vendors Samsung and Motorola – involves its iOS multi-touch patents, which we believe are the key pieces of IP that Apple ultimately seeks to reaffirm at all costs, given their potential to undermine Android. While HTC (specifically, its recent acquisition – S3 Graphics) and Apple recently won preliminary judgments against each other at the US ITC, we view S3’s victory as limited in scope (unlike Apple’s claims against HTC) and not posing a credible threat to Apple. More importantly, however, Apple recently launched a second case against HTC claiming infringement of its key multi-touch patents. We believe this is the much more important battle, and one which courts have yet to rule upon. Apple’s legal suits against other key Android OEMs (Samsung and Motorola) also include claim violation of such patents. Consistent with the importance of this IP, Apple’s recent settlement of its patent dispute and accompanying licensing agreement with Nokia does not appear to involve these patents.“

Looks like Nokia might have made a wise decision to go with Windows Phone, after all, since going with Android might have invalidated the nice cash outlay and ongoing royalties it won against Apple recently, for infringing on its own patents – this kind of money is no small change for the troubled N1 cell phone maker.

via SEObytheSea & CNN

It is no secret that Apple’s iPad is the prime device on the tablet market today. Holding over two thirds of the market makes it the most popular slate out there with the competition still trailing far behind. However, how long will the iPad’s reign last for? Well, according to an estimate given by Informa Telecoms & Media, Android tablet sales will catch up with those of the iPad at some point in 2015.

Over 90 million iPads will have been sold four years from now, if the analysis turns out to be correct, which is only a fraction more than what the number of Andorid Tablets is expected to be by that same time – 87 million, to be more precise. Later on in 2016, Apple’s tablet is predicted to be overtaken in terms of sales by affordable, Android-powered slates.

It has been noted that the iPad’s success is greatly due to its brand recognition, wide availability, high product quality and the great selection of custom-tailored software. At this time, Android tablets still have some catching up to do, especially when it comes to the software part. As we all know, the number of apps optimized for Honeycomb is not something that Google brags about. However, with the increasing amount of manufacturers joining the game with an Android-powered device of their own and with Ice Cream Sandwich coming down the road, the Android ecosystem is bound to flourish and it wouldn’t be surprising if Google’s platform achieves dominance over the market in a few short years.

source: Informa Telecoms & Media via Android Authority

After the separate International Trade Commission rulings in the beginning of the month, HTC is now ready to negotiate some terms of agreement with Apple. The ITC ruled that Apple is violating two S3 Graphics patents regarding compression technologies, whereas HTC was deemed to violate two of Apple’s own patents by the same court. HTC acquired S3 Graphics for $300 million not long ago precisely as a patent play against Cupertino.

Now the Taiwanese want to seriously talk it out and move along with life, as per Winston Yung, HTC’s Chief Financial Officer: “We have to sit down and figure it out. We’re open to having discussions. We are open to all sorts of solutions, as long as the solution and the terms are fair and reasonable. On and off we’ve had discussions with Apple, even before the initial determination came out.”

HTC is already paying royalties to Microsoft for their mobile patents, to the tune of $5 per each Android handset it makes, and it might now have to throw some cash the Apple way too, unless these two tit-for-tat violations mutually destruct in court. If HTC has to pay, we don’t know if this will be significant enough to affect HTC’s handset prices in some way, or the difference will be negligible enough for the Taiwanese to absorb in their profit margin.

source: Bloomberg

A new report from Neil Mawston, a London based analyst for Boston based Strategy Analytics, says that strong sales of Samsung smartphones, especially the Samsung Galaxy S II, quite possibly has allowed the Korean based firm to top Apple for global smartphone supremacy in Q2. Mawston says that Samsung sold between 18 and 21 million units in the three month period while Apple sold 20.3 million units of the iPhone 4 and Nokia shipped 16.7 million phones. If Samsung’s sales come in at the top end of the estimated range, the company will beat out the Cupertino based firm. Including featurephones, Nokia remains the leader with 26% of the global market, compared with 20% for Samsung.

While the Samsung Galaxy S II has been the hottest smartphone available this summer, it has yet to launch in the U.S. although images believed to be the Sprint version of the model have recently been leaked. With a dual-core 1.2GHz processor under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy S II offers a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus screen with 480 x 800 resolution and 1GB of RAM on board. The back of the phone has an 8MP camera while there is a 2MP front-facing shooter as well. Five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg say that Samsung’s second quarter earnings should double squarely from sales of the Galaxy S II. And if the device is finally released in the States for the third quarter, Samsung could report blow out figures for that period considering how much of a buzz the device has received in the U.S. from videos of the browser, hands on reports, and overseas reviews.

Mawston doesn’t think that it is all green lights ahead for Samsung. The Korean based manufacturer might have to go up against a new Apple iPhone later this year and the latter is expected to have a more powerful chip for data and a more advanced camera, according to the Bloomberg story. The analyst says that Samsung will need to fight hard against a new Apple iPhone model to keep the strong momentum it has earned with the Samsung Galaxy S II.

source: Bloomberg via RedmondPie

Placing your advertisements in smartphone apps can be a great way to spread awareness about your business or product, but if you had to pick just one platform to launch your campaign on, which one would it be? Well, hopefully this infographic made by the guys over at inneractive will make the choice easier by putting Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android side by side and comparing the effectiveness of the ads displayed on either one of the platforms.

According to the data provided in the infographic, advertisements displayed on Android devices have a higher global fill rate (or in other words, they have a higher chance to get displayed) in comparison to those that pop up on iPhones and iPads. However, iOS users are more than twice as likely to click on an advertisement, which is among the reasons why developers for Apple’s mobile platform are able to rake in higher revenues per every thousand impressions displayed in their apps.

It is also worth noting that Android apps have a higher life span on average than the ones made for iOS. However, iOS applications reach their prime time almost twice as fast, meaning that your advertisements are likely to reach a significant amount of the targeted audience in a much more timely manner.

More details are included on the infographic itself, so if you are curious to learn more, feel free to check it out.

source: inneractive

Continually seeing leaps in technology, the proliferation of web surfing on smartphones has been aided by network carriers aggressively expanding their data infrastructure across all four corners of the world. At first, 3G was undeniably accepted with open arms as it produced significantly faster speeds compared to the generation before it – and much like that, LTE and the myriad of 4G labeled networks are doing the same thing for our time. However, there are still other factors that come to play in profoundly earning a great web browsing experience on a smartphone. Knowing that, we decided to pick up a trio of top-notch devices and pit them against one another in a battle for web surfing supremacy.

Taking the Apple iPhone 4, HTC ThunderBolt, and Motorola DROID 3, we decided to run a few different web browsing tests to see how they stack up against each other. And to make things as fair as possible, especially when the 4G LTE enabled HTC ThunderBolt would smite the other two in raw data speed, we placed them all into airplane mode and connected them to the same Wi-Fi network. At this point, that takes out the network carriers out of the equation and mainly places the burden on the handset’s hardware and software to see which one is able to pull off the best results…

Read the whole article at PhoneArena.com!

During a speech at the Google Mobile Revolution conference in Tokyo, Japan, executive chairman and former CEO of the Mountain View based company, Eric Schmidt, vowed to help HTC win its patent infringement suit against Steve Jobs and Co. The ITC recently decided that Taiwan based HTC is violating two Apple patents, a decision that threatens all Android models yet to be launched. Schmidt chided Apple, where he once had a seat on the board, for responding with lawsuits instead of innovation.

Although he didn’t say Apple by name, Schmidt said, “We have seen an explosion of Android devices entering the market and, because of our successes, competitors are responding with lawsuits as they cannot respond through innovations. I’m not too worried about this.” Besides Google, HTC also has criticized Apple recently for using lawsuits instead of fair competition in the market. Schmidt said that he feels confident that Google will get the ITC to overturn the initial ruling from an ITC judge that said HTC illegally used two patents held by Apple. The entire commission must review the judge’s decision before it is final.

When all of the legal dust has settled, Apple could end up receiving a nice revenue stream from Android sales. The company could join Microsoft which already earns about $5 in revenue from each Android handset sold by HTC, thanks to royalties from patents owned by the company. Ironically, the software giant is said to make more money from the royalties it collects from each Android sale than the money it makes from shipping its own Windows Phone 7 OS. If the victory over HTC is upheld, it could pave the way for Apple to collect money from other Android manufacturers like Motorola and Samsung.

source: AppleInsider

Electronic Arts is the software publisher behind not only one of the most popular games for iOS and Android ranging from Madden NFL 11 to the Sims, but it’s also behind top PC and console games. That’s why the company is in a key position to pave the way for the future mobile gaming. It’s plans don’t lack ambition and might well mimic Amazon’s Whispersync feature which grants you access to digital books you’ve purchased across multiple platforms, all for a single price. EA Sports could do the same, only with games: bring all its games, from Madden NFL 11 to Tiger Woods PGA Tour golf, for one fixed price set for all platforms. All of the games will be connected via the same social gaming eco-system.

A radical change it is indeed, but that’s how EA Sports sees the future. Actually, it’s that lack of radical innovation Andrew Wilson, head of development for EA Sports, believes might quickly bring a company down. The games might even move to a service, like a TV channel, rather than a one-time purchase and thus allow consumers to come in contact with every content available.

“It’s about handing over control to the gamer,” Wilson clarified. “Ultimately, what we want to get to is this concept where we break down the barriers between the franchises. John Riccitiello our CEO says it seems like such a waste – we spend $20-40m making each of these games, but most gamers only ever play one, because the business model is an impediment. So how about we drive toward a model where every gamer can experience everything we make without paying that much more money. You’ve got to recognise that given the opportunity, the consumer will play and they will bring their friends.”

Social networks have also been key to pushing gaming to new heights, as now gamers across the globe amount to 1.2 billion, up from 250 million a couple of years ago. The new model might roll out in EA Sports’ titles over the next year, so there’s definitely plenty of innovation coming. Would you be willing to pay for games as a service, a Gameflix of a kind, or do you find that off-putting? Don’t hesitate to chime in the comments below.

source: The Guardian