Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 257

In the David vs. Goliath case that is Motorola vs. Apple, Motorola has gotten won a partial U.S. International Trade Commission judge's ruling in its attempts to block the import of Apple's iPhone and iPad. The judge has found that Apple has indeed violated one of the four patents that Motorola has accused Apple of violating.

The patent that the judge feels Apple has violated is one that relates to 3G technology. Bloomberg notes that "Pender's findings are subject to review by the six-member commission, which can block imports that infringe U.S. patents." However, in Germany, the same case was heard by another judge and the judge said that Apple hasn't done anything wrong.

"These are long wars, and it's one more battle in the war," said Carl Howe, an analyst with Yankee Group. "It's about accumulating as much intellectual property as possible. It's not good for innovation if you do that, but that seems to be where we're heading."

We were staring down the barrel of Facebook's initial public offering (IPO) which is two weeks from now, but according to people "familiar with the matter", the social networking companies recent acquisitions and other business distractions are threatening to delay the IPO, reports CNBC.

Management at Facebook have been looking at a May offering, with a roadshow launch somewhere around May 7, and the start of trading late the week of the 14th, people with knowledge of the deal said. But recently, founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has been focusing more on running the business and acquiring other companies such as Instagram, than preparing for the share sale.

This is according to the same people leaking this information, which is reportedly making it hard for him and other managers to focus 100-percent on the IPO preparations. Facebook is now looking to delay their roadshow a week from May 7 to May 14, or possibly the very end of May. This would delay initial trading until mid-June.

Apple only just released their quarterly earnings report, which showed some stellar numbers and growth for the Cupertino-based company. Apple saw an insane 35 million iPhones sold, $39.2 billion in revenue with $11.6 billion of that in pure profit. Apple also saw 11.8 million iPads sold, 4 million Macs, and 7.7 million iPods. I'd call this a very successful quarter.

On top of these numbers, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that the company now has over 125 million iCloud users, which is a massive growth of 25 million users in a little over two months. How many iOS devices would you say Apple sold? Well, if you said 365 million, you'd be right. More than 50 million in the last quarter alone. The App Store has hit 600,000 apps in total with more than 200,000 of those available for the iPad.

Let's talk iTunes: there are now more than 28 million songs and 45,000 movies to choose from, which goes to show just how much muscle Apple have to flex in the media department. If we consider this growth now, where could Apple be in 3, 6 or even 12 months time? Another stellar release like an iPhone 5 or proper next-gen iPad would just be insane. The sales numbers and user stats would swell, considerably.

The tech industry is filled with patent trolls. The first was Apple and it has finally come full circle. Apple is the defendant in a new lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court over claims that all of its products that use touch infringe on the patent. The patent in question is US Patent #6,920,619 named "User interface for removing an object from a display."

FlatWorld alleges that the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, sixth-gen iPod nano, MacBook Pros with trackpads, and any other Mac using a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad infringe on its patent. Also, because Apple was informed of the patent in 2007, they are claiming that Apple willfully infringed on the patent.

Curiously enough, this seems to be the company's only activity since 2009. Additionally, the patent only covers a very narrow set of gestures, so it's apparent how any of Apple's products infringes on the patent. Even more interesting is the fact that some of Apple's iPhone patents cite the patent that they are being sued over.

Most of us know about the current lawsuit that is going on between Oracle and Google. Oracle has accused Google of using the Java language and API without the proper licensing and is seeking damages. The actual trial started last week and already has featured a large array of witnesses, though none have seemingly dealt a knockout blow to either side.

Part of the issue could be trying to explain these complex technical terms and processes to the panel of jurors. They probably have the technical ability of your parents, yet the two sides are trying to explain something that people have to go to college to study for four or more years. The result is a lot of furrowed brows and over simplification.

Oracle's technical experts aren't really enjoying the fact that the nuances in play are getting lost in the courtroom. Google's Joshua Bloch seems to have been the best in explaining in ways a regular human could understand. Because of the complex detail, one of Google's counsel rolled in a file cabinet to explain Java packages.

Apple have reached a deal with local governments to finalize its plans for a data center to be built in Prineville, Oregon. According to The Associated Press' report, Apple have agreed to invest $250 million in facilities on its 160-acre property, and will offer an annual $150,000 "project fee" in lieu of property taxes over the next fifteen years.

Apple have also guaranteed some decent job numbers, where there'll be 35 jobs introduced to the center at 150-percent of the average wage in the country. The Associated Press continues:

The $150,000 project fee in part of an agreement with Apple that was made public this week. Prineville City Manager Steve Forrester called it a common arrangement. The Oregonian reports that the value of the tax break will depend on how much Apple winds up investing. Similar tax breaks on Google's $1.3 billion data center in The Dalles are worth more than $24 million to the company annually.

Do you currently own stock? If not, is it because of all the fees and difficulties associated with buying and selling it? Well, it appears that shortly after Facebook goes public, you could be able to purchase stock in companies straight from their respective Facebook page without any fees or brokers. The minimum amount would be $10, so it's not like you have to spend a fortune to start.

All of this is according to former Facebook executive and current director at Loyal3 Chris Kelly. Loyal3 would like to point out that only 18% of American families own stock, a number which they hope to change with this CSOP, or customer stock ownership plan. Direct purchase isn't new, but few companies use it since it isn't cost efficient to oversee millions of tiny share holders.

Loyal3 hopes that by making ownership easy and without fees the average person will be more inclined to purchase stock. CEO Barry Schneider points out that ownership changes a persons point-of-view regarding an item. People usually care more about something they care than something they don't. Think about it, have you ever washed a rental car?

AMD reported its first quarter financial results today and it's not quite as bad as was expected. AMD beat expectations, but they still posted a loss of $590 million. AMD has a strong product line-up in both the CPU and GPU markets, but it's pretty hard to compete against the chip giant that is Intel.

The loss, however, is not due to operations but rather an accounting charge. Revenue for the quarter was $1.59 billion which was higher than the expected $1.56 billion Including the accounting charge, the loss of $590 million amount to 80 cents a share. If we take out the accounting charge, AMD had a good quarter, with a non-GAAP profit of 12 cents a share, or $92 million. Analysts predicted only 9 cents a share with the accounting charge taken out.

"AMD delivered solid results in the first quarter as we remain focused on improving our execution, delivering innovative products, and building a company around a strategy to deliver strong cash flow and earnings growth," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "A complete top-to-bottom introduction of new APU offerings, combined with ample product supply resulting from continued progress with our manufacturing partners, positions us to win and grow."

RapidShare and MediaFire certainly don't want to be the next cyberlocker services to be taken down, but it's a fear that they are having to deal with after the US government took down MegaUpload back on January 19, 2012. They are now trying to distance themselves from MegaUpload in order to prevent being shut down on similar complaints.

All of the online cyberlocker services have fear that they could be next, and they are now publicly trying to show that they are different from the now defunct MegaUpload. Danny Raimer, who is RapidShare's general counsel, told U.S. News & World Report that Megaupload's approach to piracy was "so far from what we're doing and what we want to stand for."

RapidShare continues to deny that they are or have violated copyright laws publicly released a "responsible practices" manifesto for cyberlocker and cloud storage companies. This includes practices like including in the TOS that the company reserves the right to go through repeat offender's lockers.

eBay, in the midst of a rather uncertain economy has done very well in the first quarter of 2012. With economies around the world on the brink of destruction, eBay has managed to increase sales and income, much to the delight of Wall Street investors. Stock in the company is up more than 3.5% in after-hours trading.

The first quarter ended March 31, 2012 and the numbers that have come in have pleased investors. Net income rose to $725 million, or 55 cents per share, against $619 million, or 47 cents per share in the same quarter one year ago. Sales have increased a massive 29% to $3.3 billion. A majority of this growth is due to the strength of the company's Marketplace and PayPal businesses.

"We believe that innovation in retail today is technology driven, and consumers are embracing smarter, easier, better ways to shop," CEO John Donahoe said. "We are enabling commerce in this new retail environment, supporting and partnering with sellers of all sizes and giving consumers worldwide the ability to shop anytime, anywhere, for whatever they want."