Patents

Affymetrix Inc., which makes instruments that analyze genetic information, won a court ruling Thursday in its contention that it owns a patent at issue in its lawsuit against rival Illumina Inc. U.S. District Judge Joseph Farnan in Wilmington, Del., agreed with Affymetrix and he rejected Illumina's bid to have the patent removed from the case. The patent covers a computer system for analyzing nucleic acid sequences. It's one of six patents that Santa Clara, Calif.

Cable television set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta Inc. on Monday said a Georgia federal court has thrown out some patent infringement claims against it made by Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. Atlanta-based Scientific-Atlanta said the court ruled that the firm's Explorer 3000 and 8600x set-top boxes do not infringe two patents held by Gemstar, which makes interactive television-programming guides.

Odetics Inc. said a federal appeals court ruled in its favor in a patent suit against Storage Technology Corp. Odetics said Friday the appeals court overturned a lower court's decision that its patents for library pass-through ports were not infringed by Storage Technology, based in Louisville, Colo. The appeals court remanded the case for consideration of infringement, Odetics said.

Spansion Inc. wants to block U.S. sales of iPods, BlackBerrys and other devices because memory chips made by Samsung Electronics Co. in those products allegedly violate Spansion patents. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Spansion, the world's No. 3 maker of flash memory chips by revenue, sued South Korea's Samsung on Monday.

Nokia, the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, filed a U.S. trade complaint Thursday against San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., the latest in a fight between the two over royalties for chips that run cellphones. The complaint, filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission, relates to patents for "wireless communication chips and chip sets," according to the commission's website. A public version of the complaint was not available.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block inventors from patenting mathematical algorithms, leaving intact a powerful new legal tool for software developers, financial services companies and technology-based companies. For the second time this year, the justices rejected an appeal arguing that math formulas don't deserve the legal protection available for other innovative products and processes. The high court decision lets AT&T Corp.

EBay Inc. has settled a seven-year patent dispute with MercExchange that prompted an important intellectual-property ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. The San Jose-based online auction company said Thursday that it had bought the three MercExchange patents it had been accused of violating. The price was not disclosed, but EBay said the amount would not materially affect its financial results. Great Falls, Va.

Apple was granted a series of patents this week that included designs for a new speaker system for mobile devices and a wireless iPod remote control that attaches to a car's steering wheel. The patent for the speaker system shows a loudspeaker about the size of a quarter that would be located on the backside of Apple's iPhone and iPad devices. The patent was issued Thursday. The design provides improved performance over iOS' devices current loudspeaker despite its relatively small size.

A federal jury upheld the validity of five Lucent Technologies Inc. patents used for Internet applications and said they were infringed by Newbridge Networks Corp. products. The jury, after a three-week trial in U.S. District Court in Delaware, awarded Lucent damages of $9.5 million. Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent had sought $12 million, based on a 1% royalty for each patent. Meanwhile, Newbridge said it is exploring "strategic options," including putting itself up for sale.