A few months ago, we pointed out that since the Supreme Court made it clear that patent injunctions were being used too often, many companies were starting to use a loophole. Rather than just going through the courts to get an injunction, they would go to the US International Trade Commission and ask it for an injunction against those they accused of patent infringement. While courts need to follow the lead of the Supreme Court, the ITC could make whatever decision it wanted on whether or not a particular product actually did infringe and whether or not an injunction should be granted. It gives patent holders a second shot, outside of the court system, to get an injunction. In fact, right after we discussed this, Broadcom used exactly that loophole to get an injunction against certain Qualcomm chips. Qualcomm has been fighting this injunction without much luck, and it seems to have encouraged others to try the same thing. Nokia and Qualcomm have been engaged in a rather vicious patent fight recently -- and suddenly Nokia has come up with a strategy of (you guessed it) asking the ITC to ban the import of Qualcomm chips for patent infringement. Wonder where that idea came from? The folks at the ITC might want to start staffing up in the division that has to review these patent injunction requests. It sounds like there's going to be plenty to do in the near future.

The major labels seem to be willing to abandon digital rights management. Now Apple is embedding EMI files with the buyer's name and e-mail and Universal's "open" MP3s are watermarked. The new models could be good for consumers if done right.

A coupon-clipping maven is caught in a DMCA imbroglio. He faces federal copyright charges for posting code and instructions online that allow shoppers to print as many coupons as they want.

Vertex Shader 3.0 support in hardware

Intel has quietly rolled out support for hardware acceleration of Vertex Shader 3.0 calculations in a range of its integrated graphics chipsets, including the Q963, G965, 945G and the mobile GM965.

Filed under: Portable Audio

Church attendance is down in most of the western world, so what better way to boost the numbers than provide free iTunes gift vouchers? That's what the Church by the Glades in Florida is doing with a three week series of seminars called "'i': Living in a self absorbed world." Somehow, some free tunes, a hefty chunk of change in Apple's coffers, and a "borrowed" marketing campaign are supposed to help attendees "avoid the self-absorbed mentality." We're gonna hold off on judgement here since if anything, this gives us an excuse to whip out our iBelieve.

[Via Fark]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Looking for a dozen or so megapixels squeezed into a compact shooter are ya? Well, check Canon's latest then, the SD950 IS Digital ELPH (pictured) packs in a full 12.1 megapixels while the SD870 tones it down with just 8. The full-body titanium SD950 touts a 3.7x zoom with optical image stabilization, DIGIC III image processing, Canon's latest face recognition tech, an optical viewfinder (a rarity these days on compacts) and 2.5-inch scratch-resistant LCD with anti-reflection coating. Meanwhile, the SD870 opts for a 3.8x wide-angle optical zoom and 3-inch LCD. The SD950 and SD870 will cost you $450 and $400 respectively, when they hit shelves in September. Not what you're looking for? Stay tuned, Canon's got lots more coming today.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!