Microsoft will not be able to keep patents it proposed to buy from Novell under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

Patent attorneys and inventors of all types are closely watching a Microsoft case that the U.S. Supreme Court will start to consider on Monday.

Lawyers for Oracle and Google gave the judge overseeing their Java patent dispute a tutorial on Wednesday that underscored the complexity of the case between the two companies.

A federal judge yesterday tossed a $625.5 million patent infringement judgment against Apple, discarding a 2010 jury verdict that said the company violated patents in its iPhone, iPod, iPad and Mac OS X.

Microsoft has filed a patent lawsuit against bookseller Barnes & Noble, accusing the company of running infringing software on its Android-based Nook e-reader.

Google's decision this week to ask the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to re-examine a number of the Oracle patents at issue in the companies' ongoing intellectual-property case could have a significant effect on how the dispute plays out.

Novell's shareholders have approved the sale of the company to Attachmate for about US$2.2 billion, although the deal depends on Novell getting approval to sell hundreds of patents to a consortium led by Microsoft.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on Thursday reported net profit for the fourth quarter that beat forecasts, due mainly to income from a patent license and a legal settlement with Samsung.

In a move that will be seen by many as a big win for open-source advocates, a plan to create a consortium led by Microsoft to buy Novell patents has been withdrawn.

A U.S. appeals court has restored a jury verdict in a multimillion-dollar patent infringement case against Microsoft but ordered a new trial on damages.

Chip developer Rambus has filed patent infringement lawsuits against six chip makers including Broadcom and Freescale Semiconductor in the U.S., and said it is also seeking to ban the import of products that infringe its patents.

Motorola's mobile phone subsidiary has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft alleging the world's largest software maker has infringed 16 of its patents in PC, mobile and server software, as well as Xbox products.

Motorola has filed two patent lawsuits and a patent complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging that a wide range of Apple products infringe its patents.

Google has made a sweeping request that a court throw out the copyright- and patent-infringement lawsuit filed in August by Oracle over Java use in Android, a popular, open-source mobile-phone platform created by Google.

Microsoft filed patent infringement complaints against Motorola and its Android phones in the International Trade Commission and U.S. federal court Friday, indicating that the software giant may hope to use its strong patent position as one way to set its mobile software apart from the competition.

A firm owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a lawsuit against Google, Apple, Facebook, and other companies alleging that they have violated patents related to search, multimedia, screen pop-ups and database management.

Oracle has filed a lawsuit against Google, charging that its Android phone software infringes Oracle patents and copyrights related to Java, Oracle said on Thursday.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a final confirmation of a patent awarded to i4i that is at the heart of a dispute with Microsoft and that once threatened the sale of Word software.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has launched a formal investigation into four patent complaints filed against Apple by computer graphics hardware maker S3 Graphics, which asked the agency to block Apple from importing the iPhone, iPad and other products into the U.S.

HTC said it filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission charging Apple with infringing on five patents.