patent

News.blog: Scrabulous returns to Facebook as Wordscraper

News The law allows people to design around things, and particularly when there isn't patent protection, the law has great incentive to design around things by making things somewhat different," Kinsella said.

Tags: points, board, facebook, creators

31 July 2008, 9:28

Portable hologram projectors 'by 2010'

News The patent, granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, says this allows complex 3D holographic images to be squeezed through the narrow pipes of existing communications networks, by sending only the unprocessed data to be translated into the...

Tags: handsets, indian, holographic, gaming

20 June 2008, 9:37

News.blog: Apple TV gets Wiimote tech?

News The research, reportedly outlined in a November 2006 patent filing disclosed last week, describes a device that would work similarly to the Nintendo Wii controller "in videogames to position a user's character or to otherwise track the movement of...

Tags: apple, products, remote control, controller

12 May 2008, 9:24

Photos: Fill 'er up with yeast and sugar

News Fun fact: Quinn's last entrepreneurial endeavor was Gyration Inc, responsible for the patent behind Nintendo's Wiimote controller. Meet the EFuel100 MicroFueler, which parent company E-Fuel says is the 'world's first home ethanol product'.

Tags: press, water, credit, conference

9 May 2008, 9:56

News.blog: iPhone to get chat app?

News Now comes news of Apple's own patent application for a chat feature. The US Patent and Trademark Office published the application, titled "Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging", on 6 March -- the very same day Apple was providing...

Tags: apple, messages, chat, messaging

23 April 2008, 9:34

News.blog: iPhone carriers feel loss after price cut?

News Apple may one day have plans to build a clamshell iPhone, as evidenced by a recent patent application, but it seems unlikely that the company would change the style so quickly. Steep price cuts to the iPhone in

Tags: model, demand, europe, iphone

21 April 2008, 8:56

'Rock Band' makers named in Gibson suit

News In the latest twist in Gibson's ongoing patent spat with the billion-pound rhythm game genre, the guitar manufacturer has filed a patent-infringement suit against Guitar Hero and Rock Band creators Gibson notified Activision that the Guitar Hero...

Tags: maker, suit, band, publisher

26 March 2008, 9:12

News.blog: 'Rock Band' to hit Wii

News Meanwhile, guitar manufacturer Gibson Guitar has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturers of both Guitar Hero and Rock Band as well as six major retailers -- according to Gibson, it's held a patent on a guitar-playing videogame since 1999.

Tags: console, networks, gaming, manufacturers

25 March 2008, 8:57

News.blog: Apple to design clamshell iPhone?

News Unwiredview.com found an Apple patent application for a "dual-sided trackpad device", which resembles the current iPhone redesigned into the clamshell format so popular with many mobile phones. Apple's patent application describes how you could use...

Tags: iphone, touchscreen, patent, clamshell

18 March 2008, 9:17

Photos: Cardboard furniture keeps it green

News Cardboard Design CEO Vahid Pourkay has a patent pending on what he calls "liquid cardboard", which can mutate into as many as 50 different shapes including vases, bowls and pen holders. What does cardboard furniture have to do with technology?

Tags: interest, designs, material, shapes

10 March 2008, 9:37

News.blog: A new focus for photographers

News Ng said he hopes to licence it to camera companies, and boasts that Refocus Imaging's patent portfolio is "very, very good". It's one of the oldest, most common problems in photography: that picture you thought would be the prize shot is out of focus.

Tags: fix, field, research, raw

29 February 2008, 9:22

Microsoft hit with record EC fine

News Microsoft claimed these interfaces involved significant innovation, and initially asked companies to pay a royalty on all products using them, set at rates of 3.87 per cent for a patent licence, and 2.98 per cent for a licence giving access to the...

Tags: publish, products, cent, rates

28 February 2008, 9:21

Photos: Lego celebrates 50 years

News Yesterday, Lego celebrated the 50th anniversary of the day it filed its first patent for the iconic plastic brick. The Lego system was first unveiled in 1955, before the patent for the now-iconic plastic brick was filed.

Tags: elements, europe, plan, plastic

29 January 2008, 8:52

Photos: Competition shines at Solar Decathalon

News The Technische Universitat from Darmstadt in Germany created these 'building-integrated photovoltaics' and is said to be pursuing a patent. Welcome to the Solar Decathlon at the National Mall in Washington,

15 October 2007, 10:54

Analysts pooh-pooh Google phone

News The rumour mill went into overdrive after it was revealed Google had submitted a patent in the US for a mobile payment system -- dubbed Poulbere said the mobile payment patent submission is more likely to be an extension of Google's online payment...

10 September 2007, 9:17