ITC Staff Now Advocates An Exception From Potential HTC 4G Android Device Ban.

ITC staff earlier concluded that banning HTC 4G Android devices would not affect the public, ""is not contrary to the public interest"" since there are other 4G devices in the market. But now they are suggesting a six month narrow exception to be allowed in the case of any exclusion order. So Apple will not be able to ban HTC Android device imports, at least for six months from such decision.

"In its opening submission, OUII recommended that, in the event a violation is found, a limited exclusion order should issue against the HTC Respondents. In OUII's view, the issue raised by the submissions of HTC and third parties (Google and T-Mobile) is not whether an exclusion order should issue, but whether any exceptions to such an order are appropriate based upon the public interest. As discussed below, OUII submits that, based upon the parties' and third-party submissions regarding the public interest, any exclusion order should contain a narrow exception to allow for the continued importation of HTC's 4G-capable devices for a limited duration."

The ITC staff have also concluded that such exception would not harm Apple, sighting that Apple does not have a competing 4G device. (I don;t know if ITC is trying to turn Steve Jobs in his grave);
"In contrast, the harm to Apple from an exception to the exclusion order is likely to be small. Apple currently does not have a competing 4G device. Additionally, the number of 4G HTC devices is fairly small at this time. Thus, Apple will still enjoy the benefit of an exclusion order that is limited , for the present, to only HTC’s 3G devices."
This decision might even affect the ruling of Apple vs Samsung, (request for injunction) soon to be decided in California.
Either way, I find this to be fair and I know, I will be trading my iPhone 4S for a 4G device soon, either from Samsung (most likely) or even HTC.
FOSS Patents has all the information on this issue and more.

Lodsys '565 Patent, 24 Claims Rejected : Non-Final Office Action

The patent troll that have been haunting app developers on both iOS and Android platforms, Lodsys has received first office action. Four independent claims and 20 dependent claims have been rejected leaving zero independent claims and 8 dependent claims.
The USPTO (The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) granted the reexamination of two Lodsys patents challenged by Google and has issued a first office action on the '565 patent.. Four independent and 24 dependent claims challenged by Google, the USPTO has rejected all four independent claims and 20 of the 24 dependent claims in this patent.
Earlier, USPTO rejected 28 claims of the other patent of Lodsys challenged, the '078.
You can read about all the legal stuff about this case at Groklaw, where they take confusion out of simple facts like "rejection of claims" whether it is Google's claim or the claims associated with the patent.

1TB Octane SSD From OCZ

Those spinning platters in your computers, called hard drives, may come to pass sooner than expected, now that SSDs are out with sizes to fit most needs with crazy fast hardware. The new Octane range from OCZ, which comes in sizes of up to one terabyte will be released in November for yet undisclosed prices. Anandtech expects the 1TB drive to be about $1300.

The Octane range has two flavors, first a SATA 2.0 version which will transfer data at up to 275MB/s (read), and the SATA 3.0 model with read speeds that reach 560MB/s.

I want one to replace my 750GB drive on my notebooks both PC (HP) and MAC (Macbook Pro)

OCZ Press release;

2011-10-20

New 2.5 inch High-Capacity Octane SSDs Leverage the Indilinx Everest Platform to Deliver Superior Performance and Endurance for a Wide Range of Workloads

SAN JOSE, CA - Oct. 20, 2011 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs), today launched the Indilinx Everest-based Octane SATA 3.0 and SATA 2.0 SSD series, striking the ideal balance between capacity, physical size, and speed. In addition to being the world's first SSD to achieve up to a 1TB capacity in a compact 2.5 inch format, OCZ's Octane SSD series combines high-speed data transfer rates with record-breaking access times to provide a superior user experience and improved application performance.

"OCZ has reached an important milestone in the development of its own controller technology," said James E. Bagley, Senior Analyst with Storage Strategies NOW. "The high sustained performance, even with compressed files, the rapid boot feature and high access speeds using SATA 3.0 protocol puts their controller technology in the major league."

"Until now SSDs have been tailored for specific applications, forcing users into a product which maximizes performance for a narrow band of applications, but is significantly lacking in others," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "The Octane Series solves this problem by providing the highest level of performance across varied workloads including mixed file sizes and mixed compressible and uncompressible data, all while nearly doubling NAND flash endurance."

The Octane series leverages the cutting-edge Indilinx Everest platform to deliver up to 560MB/s of bandwidth and 45,000 IOPS and is optimized for the complete spectrum of file types and sizes. In particular, the Octane's proprietary page mapping algorithms allow for steady mixed-workload performance, mirroring real world conditions across a wide range of applications. The Octane series also includes a number of advanced features unique to Indilinx, including innovative latency reduction technology, enabling both read and write access times as low as 0.06ms and 0.09ms respectively, the lowest of any commercially available SSD. This enhances application responsiveness and enables features such as "fast boot" in consumer applications.

Octane SSDs also come equipped with Indilinx's proprietary NDurance™ technology, increasing the lifespan of the NAND flash memory, ensuring the most consistent and reliable performance as well as minimizing performance degradation even after the drive's storage capacity is highly utilized. In addition, Octane series drives support AES and automatic encryption to secure critical data.

Octane Product Features:

- Dual Core CPU
- Up to 512MB DRAM cache
- 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB models
- High sequential speeds:
Octane (SATA 3.0) Read: 560MB/s; Write: 400MB/s
Octane-S2 (SATA 2.0) Read: 275MB/s; Write: 265MB/s
- High transactional performance - Optimized for 4K to 16K compressed files
Octane (SATA 3.0) 45,000 random read 4K IOPS
Octane-S2 (SATA 2.0) 30,000 random read 4K IOPS
- Industry-low latency:
Read: 0.06ms; Write: 0.09ms
- Strong performance at low queue depths (QD 1 – 3)
- Up to 8 channels with up to 16-way Interleaving
- Advanced BCH ECC engine enabling more than 70 bits correction capability per 1KB of data
- Proprietary NDurance™ Technology: increases NAND life up to 2X of the rated P/E cycles
- Efficient NAND Flash management: Dynamic and static wear-leveling, and background garbage collection
- Boot time reduction optimizations
- NCQ support up to 32 queue depth
- End-to-end data protection
- TRIM support
- Industry standard SMART reporting

The OCZ Octane SSD Series will be available November 1st in models ranging from 128GB-1TB capacities throughout OCZ's global channel.

OCZ

Samsung's 3G Patents Asserted Against Apple In 9 Countries.

This patent wars does not seem to end anytime soon and APple vs Samsung cases get filed all over the world. Sometimes it seems so ridiculous but business need to go on. I guess only litigation will remain at the end.
If Apple rightfully won the injunction against Samsung, it is only right if Samsung does the same. Some times I wonder, why these people can't talk. Then again, it is the lawyers who talk, not techies. It is always advantageous for lawyers to have cases, so it might be one reason these talks fail or do not exist.
FOSS Patents has researched and listed 13 patents that Samsung is asserting against Apple. You can read the write up and the rest of the patents, I have only listed first 5 patents here.

U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0252377

"Method and apparatus for reporting inter-frequency measurement using RACH message in a communication system" (link)

European equivalent (EP1720373) asserted in France and Italy

U.S. Patent No. 6,598,202

"Turbo interleaving apparatus and method" (link)

European equivalent (EP1097516) asserted in France and the Netherlands; local equivalent (KR100330234, application number KR1020000027143) asserted in Korea

U.S. Patent No. 6,928,604

"Turbo encoding/decoding device and method for processing frame data according to QoS" (link)

asserted in the Northern District of California; European equivalent (EP1005726) asserted in Germany, the UK, and Italy; Australian equivalent (AU722598) asserted in Australia

U.S. Patent No. 7,050,410

"Apparatus and method for controlling a demultiplexer and a multiplexer used for rate matching in a mobile communication system" (link)

asserted in the Northern District of California; European equivalent (EP1114528) asserted in Germany and the Netherlands; Australian equivalent (AU751376) asserted in Australia

U.S. Patent No. 7,200,792

"Interleaving apparatus and method for symbol mapping in an HSDPA mobile communication system" (link)

asserted in the Northern District of California

FOSS Patents

Another Patent Troll In Your WiFI Space, Innovatio

Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC (who does not innovate anything nor has any product even though their name suggests such) is going arround suing hotels and coffee shops who offer WiFi in their establishments. according to statements made by the lawyers of Innovatio it is possible that they come after home users as well, but they are too busy suing small business owners for small amounts to come after you, yes the home WIFI owner.

“Innovatio has made a strategic and business judgment at this stage that it doesn’t intend to pursue [lawsuits on the basis of] residential use of WiFi,” McAndrews, a lawyer representing Innovatio in these dubious lawsuits.

According to Patent Examiner. UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Project, they are basically blackmailing the small business users by suing for small amounts ($2300 to $5000) so that not defending in a courts against such lawsuits are not economically sound.
These patents have ended up with Innovatio through Broadcom, who refuses to divulge the information about the patents (31 of them) or why they are with Innovatio.
Cisco and Motorola are going against Innovatio and seeking a declaratory judgment calling for the Delaware federal court to rule that their products don’t infringe, and declare Innovatio’s patents invalid.
Patent Examiner (for more information and documents related to the case(s))