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I learned not too awfully long ago what exactly a blog is…and to be honest with you, I’m still not 100% sure. But with many hands of friends and class mates we can make the blog better and updated for use.

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Monday, October 17, 2011

Samsung seeks iPhone4S sales ban in Australia and Japan

Samsung electronics has raised the stakes in its current legal battle with Apple by seeking a ban on sales of iPhone4S in Australia and Japan.
This follows similar pleas by the Korean manufacturer in France and Italy claiming patent infringement by Apple.
The move comes after a court in Australia temporarily banned the sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1.
The two companies have been involved in a bitter legal battle involving smartphones and tablet PCs.
"Apple has continued to violate our patent rights and free ride on our technology," Samsung said in a statement. "We will no longer stand idly by and will steadfastly protect our intellectual property."
Losing ground?
While there have been claims and counter claims from both sides, Apple seems to be gaining the initial edge in the legal battle between the two.
Last week, a judge in the US ruled that Samsung's tablets infringed patents owned by Apple. However, she said that Apple needed to prove the validity of those patents in order to win an injunction preventing the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab.
This followed a ban by an Australia court on the sale of Samsung's Galaxy tab 10.1 in the country.
Samsung said it had filed an appeal against the Australian court's decision.
Apple has also scored a victory against its rival in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, banning the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Meanwhile Samsung's plea for a sales ban against some of Apple products was rejected by a Dutch court last Friday.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Now, even the Tricolour is 'Made in China'

MUMBAI: It's no secret that the omnipresent Chinese goods, mainly fake versions of your favourite brands-be it garments, toys, computer hardware, I-pods, chocolates and even cellphones are available at throwaway prices in the Indian markets. But now, even the Tricolour comes with the 'Made in China' tag.

Nestled in a narrow bylane at Abdul Rehman Street near Bhaji Pala market in Crawford Market are quaint little shops selling 'Made in China' India flags. While the original Tricolour of the Indian make is costly, made from hand spun khadi, cotton and silk, buyers can now opt for a cheaper cotton Chinese version, priced at Re 1 per flag.

Interestingly, during the second August Kranti, Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement, there was a huge demand for the 'Made in China' Indian flags.

In their frenzy to raise slogans, protesters didn't realise that the Tricolour they were waving with gusto were fake versions or a pale imitation of the original flag. According to the Indian Flag Code of India, our national emblem, the Ashok Chakra-a 24-spoke wheel-is present on the flag, representing the eternal wheel of law. However, some protesters during Anna Hazare's movement realized to their utter horror that the flags they were patriotically waving had only 18 spokes instead of 24.

Said Ruben Mascarenhas, youth co-ordinator, India Against Corruption, "During the time, it became a campaign paraphernalia which included placards, Anna caps and national flags. A large number of people who brought these flags to Azad Maidan had only 18 spokes in the Ashok Chakra. We disposed it off and it was not displayed in public, as it was a dishonour to our national flag. On further inquiries, we found out that flags were all sold out in most Khadi Gramodyog shops, while the other local made flags were priced much higher (three times more) than during the recent World Cup frenzy. Chinese flags were sold at a nominal price. It was more economical for people to go in for these flags."

Monday, August 29, 2011

RBI sets bar high for banking entry


Brokerages, real estate companies and state-owned firmswill not be allowed to promote banks
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said industrial houses will be allowed to set up banks, but stipulated stringent norms that may disqualify many of the aspirants as it unveiled draft guidelines for new banks in the country.
Companies that have an exposure of 10% or more to real estate and brokerage businesses in terms of revenue or assets are not eligible to seek licences to enter India’s R
s.
64 trillion banking industry. To be able to float a bank, a corporation or a non-banking financial company (NBFC) will need a “diversified ownership, sound credentials and integrity”, and a 10-year track record.

The draft norms have kept the minimum capital required for new banks at R
s.
500 crore.

Those who secure in-principle approval will have to set up banks within a year and need to have capital adequacy ratio of 12% against the current 9% norm for banks.
RBI has invited suggestions and comments on the proposals till 31 October. The norms will not be ready until the government amends the Banking Regulation Act, empowering RBI to supersede bank boards in case of any serious irregularities.
New banks can be set up only through a wholly owned non-operative holding company (NOHC), RBI said. This entity will hold the bank and other financial services companies in the group.
Currently, India has 81 commercial banks, out of which 22 are privately owned.
“The message is clear. Only those parties that are really serious to make significant changes in the group structure will be encouraged to seek licences,” said Viren H. Mehta, director at Ernst and Young India.
The groups or entities with 10% or more income or assets or both from real estate and broking activities, “individually or taken together” in the last three years, are not eligible to float new banks.
This norm may put a spoke in the wheel of many aspirants. For instance, most brokerages, including India Infoline and Edelweiss Capital, and real estate companies may not be able to seek licences.
Brokerage Religare Enterprises Ltd, however, said it has segregated and separated management for each business, and as a promoter group “income from broking business is less than 10%”, and hence it is eligible to seek a banking licence.
“The draft guidelines contain a strong focus on greater financial inclusion, efficient corporate governance, adequate controls on exposure to group companies, and time-bound milestones for listing,” said Sam Ghosh, CEO of Reliance Capital Ltd, another aspirant.
Gagan Banga, CEO of Indiabulls Financial Services, part of a conglomerate rumoured to be interested in starting a bank, said his group will not seek a banking licence.
Nirmal Jain, chairman of India Infoline Ltd, said RBI’s move to disqualify brokerages was “surprising” as such entities do have the understanding, capital strength and distribution network to run banks.
“Logically, many large brokerages are efficient players in the financial services industry. Showing an aversion to them is quite surprising and is not appropriate,” he said.
The RBI proposal said “past experience with brokers on the boards of banks has not been satisfactory”, and it is therefore“necessary to ensure that any entity/group undertaking such activities on a significant scale is not considered for a bank licence”.
Also, companies such as LIC Housing Finance Ltd, Power Finance Corp. Ltd and Rural Electrification Corp. Ltd, too, are out of the fray as they are government-owned entities and the new set of banks are to be owned by private firms only.
The holding company will initially have at least a 40% stake in the bank for the first five years and this will be brought down to 20% within 10 years and 15% within 12 years. The bank will be required to list itself by offering shares to the public within two years of licensing.
The foreign holding in new banks will be capped at 49%, even though current norms allow overseas entities to invest up to 74% in private banks.
Any single entity or group, however, cannot hold more than 5%.
In a bid to ensure corporate governance, RBI has proposed that at least half the directors of the holding company should be independent.
RBI also warned that it may “impose additional conditions and, if warranted, may withdraw the in-principle approval” if any “adverse features” are noticed regarding the promoters, their associated firms and the group in which they have interest.
No financial services entity under NOHC would be allowed to engage in any activity that a bank is permitted to undertake departmentally. All such activities will have to be moved to the new bank subject to respective regulations, RBI said.
“RBI will have to be satisfied that the corporate structure does not impede the financial services under NOHC from being ring-fenced, that it would be able to supervise the bank and NOHC on a consolidated basis, and that it will be able to obtain all required information from the group relevant for this purpose smoothly and promptly,” it said.
In those cases where promoters have more than 40% of their assets or income from non-financial business, the exposure of the new bank to any entity in the promoter group will be capped at 10% and aggregate exposure at 20% of the capital and reserves of the bank.
Boards of such banks should have a majority of independent directors and need to seek prior approval of RBI to raise capital beyond R
s.
 1,000 crore.

Analysts said the draft lacks clarity on certain aspects, such as the diversified ownership of the aspirants.
“The key thing is that RBI has not defined what is diversified ownership. In my opinion, less than 26% could suggest a probable diversified holding. In that case, very few entities, such as Larsen and Toubro, will be eligible to apply,” said Vaibhav Agarwal, vice-president (research) at Angel Broking Ltd. Shriram Transport Finance Co. Ltd could be another eligible firm.
The over-arching objective behind the new set of banks is the spread of banking services, or so-called financial inclusion. RBI wants new banks to have a robust technology platform from the beginning and at least 25% of their branches in rural India. These lenders have to meet the so-called priority sector lending norms, under which they need to lend 40% of their total loans to agriculture, exports and weaker sections.
RBI kicked off the process to allow private firms to float banks after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in his February 2010 budget announced that the apex bank was considering such a plan. In August 2010, RBI released a discussion paper on relevant issues, including capital requirement, the profile of promoters and foreign investment.
The process, however, got delayed due to the differences between the government and the regulator on certain issues such as foreign direct holding. For instance, while RBI has proposed a 49% limit on aggregate overseas holdings in the first five years, the government was in favour of a higher 74% cap to attract more foreign funds to the domestic market.
RBI last issued new licences in 2003 for Yes Bank Ltd and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. Before that, in the mid-1990s, nine new banks opened and a cooperative bank was converted into a commercial bank.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

ARTICLE 1 FOR ASSIGNMENT


Apple succeeds in fast-tracking California lawsuit against Samsung


Apple has won another victory in the legal battle with Samsung around smartphones and tablets, which spans 12 courts in nine countries. This one comes in California regarding a request for an expedited trial, shortly after another ruling went its way yesterday in a German court.

The Northern District of California court granted Apple’s request for an expedited trial on Thursday, FOSS Patents reports, although it didn’t quite give the company everything it was looking for. Apple had asked that the trial, which will issue a decision based on Apple’s original complaints of infringement related to mobile patents it holds as well as counterclaims made by Samsung, take place in February 2012.
Samsung objected to any sort of expedited timeline, arguing that there are 43 distinct claims to be addressed at the trial and that such complexity required more time. The median time for a similar case to come to trial in the district is 23 months, which would make for a March 2013 start date.
While the court didn’t agree to the proposed February date, it did set one much earlier than what Samsung called for. The trial will take place on July 30, 2012, just 15 and a half months after Apple’s original filing. FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller believes this will work out in Apple’s favor, since the schedule is ambitious and Samsung is on the defensive and will therefore have less time to organize its case.
Samsung also won a smaller victory in that some of Apple’s legal team withdrew in the face of a motion from Samsung to disqualify them, because they had previously worked for the South Korean company on cases in the same general ballpark, which might give them an unfair advantage. Mueller thinks this victory is relatively minor, considering the wealth of talent available to Apple in terms of high-quality intellectual property lawyers.
Apple isn’t running away with the game when it comes to its legal struggle with Samsung, but it is chalking up small victories that could lead to larger ones down the road. When the trial proper gets under way next summer, I expect we’ll start to see some real sparks fly, since the stakes should be even higher by then.

Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation

Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994)
was a copyright infringement lawsuit in which Apple Computer, Inc. (nowApple Inc.) sought to prevent Microsoft Corporation and Hewlett-Packard from using visual graphical user interface (GUI) elements that were similar to those in Apple's Lisa and Macintosh operating systems. The court ruled that, "Apple cannot get patent- protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor [under copyright law]..." In the midst of the Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit, Xerox also sued Apple alleging that Mac's GUI was heavily based on Xerox's. The district court dismissed Xerox's claims without addressing whether Apple's GUI infringed Xerox's, since the latter licensed it to the former back in 1979 for pre-IPO stock. Apple lost all claims in the Microsoft suit except for the ruling that the trash can icon and folder icons from Hewlett-Packard's NewWave windows application were infringing. The lawsuit was filed in 1988 and lasted four years; the decision was affirmed on appeal in 1994, and Apple's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied.

Background

Apple had agreed to license certain parts of its GUI to Microsoft for use in Windows 1.0, but when Microsoft made changes in Windows 2.0 adding overlapping windows and other features found in the Macintosh GUI, Apple filed suit. Apple added additional claims to the suit when Microsoft releasedWindows 3.0.
Apple claimed the "look and feel" of the Macintosh operating system, taken as a whole, was protected by copyright, and that each individual element of the interface (such as the existence of windows on the screen, the rectangular appearance of windows, windows could be resized, overlap, and have title bars) was not as important as all these elements taken together. After oral arguments, the court insisted on an analysis of specific GUI elements that Apple claimed were infringements. Apple listed 189 GUI elements; the court decided that 179 of these elements had been licensed to Microsoft in the Windows 1.0 agreement and most of the remaining 10 elements were not copyrightable—either they were unoriginal to Apple, or they were the only possible way of expressing a particular idea.
Midway through the suit, Xerox filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming Apple had infringed copyrights Xerox held on its GUIs. Xerox had invited the Macintosh design team to view their GUI computers at the PARC research lab; these visits had been very influential on the development of the Macintosh GUI. Xerox's lawsuit appeared to be a defensive move to ensure that if Apple v. Microsoft established that "look and feel" was copyrightable, then Xerox would be the primary beneficiary, rather than Apple. The Xerox case was dismissed, since the company licensed its GUI to Apple for shares of the latter in 1979.


Court case

The district court ruled that it would require a standard of "virtual identity" between Windows and the Macintosh at trial in order for Apple to prove copyright infringement. Apple believed this to be too narrow of a standard and that a more broad "look and feel" was all that should be necessary at trial. As a result, both parties agreed that a jury trial was unnecessary given the rulings, and Apple filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in order to have the district court's characterization overruled.
After the district court ruled in favor of Microsoft, Apple appealed the decision arguing that the district court only considered infringements on the individual elements of Apple's GUI, rather than the interface as a whole. The appeals court almost entirely affirmed the ruling of the district court, establishing that, "almost all the similarities spring either from the license or from basic ideas and their obvious expression... illicit copying could occur only if the works as a whole are virtually identical." However, the circuit court did reverse the district court's decision not to award attorney's fees to Microsoft, clarifying and sending the case back to the district court to resolve the issue.
The circuit court dissected the GUI, following the lead of the district court, in order to separate expression from ideas (as expression, but not ideas, are covered by copyright law). The court outlined five ideas that it identified as basic to a GUI desktop: windows, icon images of office items, manipulations of icons, menus, and the opening and closing of objects. The court established that Apple could not make copyright claims based on these ideas and could only make claims on the precise expression of them.
The court also pointed out that many of Apple's claims fail on an originality basis. Apple admittedly licensed many of its representations from Xerox, and copyright protection only extends to original expression. Apple returned to its "complete look and feel" argument, stating that while the individual components were not original, the complete GUI was. The court rejected these arguments because the parts were not original.


Impact

Because much of the court's ruling was based on the original licensing agreement between Apple and Microsoft for Windows 1.0, it made the case more of a contractual matter than of copyright law, to the chagrin of Apple. This also meant that the court avoided a more far-reaching "look and feel copyright" precedent ruling. However, the case did establish that the analytic dissection (rather than the general "look and feel") of a user interface is vital to any copyright decision on such matters.
In 1997, five years after the lawsuit was decided, all lingering infringement questions against Microsoft regarding the Lisa and Macintosh GUI as well as Apple's "QuickTime piracy" lawsuit against Microsoft were settled in direct negotiations. Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer their default browser, to the detriment of Netscape. Microsoft agreed to continue developing Microsoft Office and other software for the Mac over the next five years. Microsoft also purchased $150 million of non-voting Apple stock, helping Apple in its financial struggles at the time. Both parties entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement.

Impact of intellectual property rights (IPRs) on various sectors of Indian economy-MY SECTOR IS COMPUTER


HTC files patent infringement case against Apple
HTC seeks a ban on importation and sale of a range of Apple products including Macs, iPhones and iPads

IDG News Service - HTC has filed a lawsuit against Apple for allegedly infringing on three patents, the latest in the legal battle raging between the companies.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware on Monday, HTC is seeking damages and a ban on sale and importation of infringing Apple products in the U.S., according to court documents. HTC is alleging that Apple is infringing on its patents in a range of products that include Macintosh computers, the iPad, the iPhone and Apple TV.
HTC on Tuesday also filed a complaint against Apple with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) on the same patents, the company said with a statement. HTC is taking action to protect itself, customers and "industry partners," the company said in a statement.
"This is the third case before the ITC in which Apple is infringing our intellectual property. Apple needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its products," said Grace Lei, general counsel of HTC, in the statement.
Taiwan-based HTC makes phones and tablets based on Google's Android, an OS also used by other prominent phone makers such as Samsung, Motorola and LG Electronics. Apple is already engaged in a patent battle against Motorola and Samsung in different countries. Apple has settled a patent dispute with one of the other top phone makers, Nokia, which is basing its future phone strategy around Microsoft's Windows Phone OS.
HTC accused Apple of violating patent 7,765,414, patent 7,672,219 and patent7,417,944, which are tied to communication between systems and wireless devices.
This is the latest lawsuit between the companies in an ongoing patent dispute as the companies try to gain an upper hand in the mobile device market. Applehas filed multiple lawsuits against HTC, including a suit in March last year for allegedly infringing on 20 patents. HTC and Apple have also exchanged patent infringement complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission.
HTC is also bulking up its intellectual property portfolio. Last month, it announced plans to acquire graphics chip maker S3 Graphics from Via Technologies for $300 million. HTC will get S3 Graphics' portfolio of 235 patents and pending applications, including many related to graphics. On July 1, an ITC judge ruled that Apple infringed on some S3 Graphics graphics patents.
HTC's lawsuit was filed the same day Google entered into an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility for about $12.5 billion. Apple did not respond to requests for commen