Bloggers are abuzz with speculation about whether Apple is planning to sue Palm. At issue is Palm's new Pre smartphone, which has a multi-touch screen that, like the iPhone, can be controlled using a two-finger pinch. Apple has applied for a patent to cover the touch-screen technology that multi-touch screens use.

(January 21, 2009) According to MSNBC, Judge Robert Smith of the Mobile (Alabama) County Circuit has upheld a $192M jury verdict against chemical companies Ineos Americas LLC and Germany-based Ineos Phenol. The lawsuit was filed in 2006 by chemist Sven Peter Mannsfeld, now 72, a German immigrant who worked at Degussa Corp. for 30 years. Mannsfeld claimed that Ineos stole his hazardous waste recycling idea and patented it as their own -- an allegation that was satisfactorily proven in court.

(January 11, 2009) According to a report on Reuters, a federal judge has ruled that Rambus' actions in destroying documents from 1998-1999 was “obstructive at best, misleading at worst,” and said that Rambus could not enforce its patents against memory chip maker Micron Technology.

It is a defense to a claim of patent infringement that the patent-in-suit is invalid. For this reason, defendants are constantly exercising their imaginations in the search for new grounds for holding a patent invalid. Recently, one such defendant succeeded in killing a patent on the grounds that it was based upon an application which had been filed one day too late and then revived. The defendant (Aristocrat v. IGT) argued that revival was only allowed in cases of “unavoidable” delay, while the applicant could only show its delay was “unintentional” – a lower standard.