Samsung was dealt another blow in its patent battle against Apple this week after a court in the Netherlands ruled that Samsung is not allowed to pursue injunctions on "essential" patents if Cupertino is willing to negotiate a licensing deal.

The US Supreme Court Tuesday refused to consider a Hynix Semiconductor appeal that argued Rambus shouldn't be able to enforce certain patents because it misled an organization that sets industry-wide standards for computer memory chips.

Atomic Precision Systems (APS), a little-known semiconductor equipment vendor specializing in deposition technology, has filed a patent infringement suit against Intel, IBM and Micron Technology claiming that they willfully infringed on an atomic layer deposition (ALD) patent held by APS, according to a statement issued by the company's law firm Tuesday.

The last of three patents that Rambus used to win infringement lawsuits against Nvidia, Hewlett-Packard and others has been declared invalid, according to legal documents.

Traders said they had heard that ZTE had lost a patent lawsuit with Ericsson and had to pay a penalty of EUR500 million (US$640.83 million), although a ZTE executive told Reuters that the outcome of the lawsuit was not out yet.

Eastman Kodak Company has filed lawsuits against Apple and HTC, alleging the infringement of certain Kodak patents relating to digital imaging technology.

The cost of patent lawsuits and a more competitive market weighed down Motorola Mobility's fourth quarter financial results, the company reported when releasing preliminary numbers.

Smartphones are relatively new, but will likely follow the path of more mature electronics industries, in which "you typically see large cross-licensing agreements between the big players because they've all got lots of patents the others are infringing."

Freescale Semiconductor has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) accusing MediaTek, Zoran and others of patent infringement, the ITC has said by way of an online posting of pending complaints.

The US Supreme Court left intact a ruling that lets Tessera Technologies seek damages from Qualcomm and four other companies for infringing patents covering computer-chip packaging.

The announcement comes just weeks after HTC warned that its revenues could fall by much more the 8% in this quarter compared to the third quarter.

Both IBM and Samsung are well on their way to exceed the number of the patents they received in 2010 - when IBM got 5896 and Samsung 4551.

Huawei has confirmed that Microsoft is demanding royalty payments from it over products using Android software.

The deal provides LG with a license to IV's extensive patent portfolio.

Apple has been granted a patent on unlocking a smartphone or tablet using a touchscreen gesture.

Eastman Kodak is weighing options including a bankruptcy filing because of concerns raised by possible buyers of its patent portfolio, said three people with direct knowledge of the process. Kodak confirmed that it hired Jones Day to advise it on considering options, and said it doesn't plan to seek bankruptcy protection.

Samsung Electronics Co. made a proposal to Apple Inc. (AAPL) to resolve their patent dispute in Australia regarding touch-screen technology, a Sydney court was told Sept. 30.

Android's purveyor crossed a line when it sold arms to be used against Apple.

German high-tech lighting manufacturer Osram gmbh and its subsidiary, Osram Opto Semiconductors, filed multiple lawsuits in South Korea against companies controlled by LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung LED Co. Ltd., claiming that the companies are infringing core Osram patents.

Patent licensing company Rambus made a net loss of US$10.6 million on revenues of US$66.2 million in the second quarter of 2011. However, the company guided that it would be profitable in the third quarter on rising revenues.

Apple originally asserted 10 of its patents against HTC in March 2010, and the judge ruled today that HTC infringed on two patents, according to an HTC statement.

The news comes just weeks after Apple and Samsung accused each other of copying designs and technology.

The US trade agency has agreed to review a complaint by Freescale against Funai Electric, Funai, Mediatek and Zoran.

Judge E. James Gildea found that Apple infringes US Patent No. 6,658,146 directed to systems and methods for compressing images and US Patent No. 6,683,978 directed to image data formats, both of which belong to S3 Graphics. In the industry, that technology is known as S3 Texture Compression (S3TC).