A new patent infringement lawsuit in China and Brazil has been filed against Comba Telecom Systems Ltd and its affiliates by CommScope, Inc through its Andrew LLC subsidiary. The legal actions focus on Comba’s alleged infringement of the CommScope patents regarding remote electrical tilt (RET) technology, which is used for base station antennas in wireless networks.

CommScope’s patented RET system allows for cost-effective and ongoing beam adjustment of the variable electrical downtilt of base station antennas. This helps to enhance the capacity, quality and coverage of mobile networks. CommScope is said to have a vast array of patents in its patent portfolio. According to CommScope, these valuable intellectual property assets are the result of years of hard work and financial investments in research and development. CommScope’s patents are the essence of the company, and patent protection continues to be a high priority for them. So far, CommScope has licensed its patented RET technology to over ten companies in the communications industry.

In China, CommScope has filed patent lawsuits against numerous Comba entities in the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court. The lawsuits allege that Comba’s sale and manufacture of RET antennas infringe at least two of CommScope’s Chinese patents. In Brazil, CommScope has sought a criminal search and seizure at Comba’s offices in Barueri, Sao Paulo. The request is based on evidence that Comba Ind e Com de Equipamentos de Telecomunicacoes Ltda was infringing on Brazilian patents that CommScope owns under its Andrew LLC subsidiary.

The request was eventually authorized by Barueri’s judicial authorities. Then on May 19, several of Comba’s RET antennas were apprehended, as well as relevant documents related to their sales figures. CommScope fully believes that the seized products infringe its Brazilian patents. In both the Chinese and Brazilian lawsuits, CommScope is seeking an injunction and past damages for Comba’s infringement.

Skype has new patent litigation to deal with just a month after its acquisition by Microsoft. Via Vadis, a company from Luxembourg, is complaining that Skype infringed on two of its patents.

Via Vadis had been attempting litigation against Skype in Europe. However, now that Skype is being bought by Microsoft, Via Vadis is bringing its case to the United States. Skype is now being sued in the US District of Delaware, with papers filed on the same day that Microsoft pronounced its deal to acquire the VoIP giant.

The US patent lawsuit filed in the federal court by Via Vadis seeks damages and a court order that would force Skype to stop infringing its technology. The case alleges infringement of two patents related to organizing and accessing data, namely US Patent No. RE40,521 and US Patent No. 7,904,680. Both of these patents are fundamental to P2P, or peer to peer, technology that forms the basis of the Skype service.

Via Vadis has already filed comparable patent infringement cases in Luxembourg, Japan and Germany over the last year, but so far without any conclusive results. For the suit in Luxembourg, the court dispatched a discovery order to gather evidence and inspect Skype’s offices but only in that country. Nonetheless, Skype declined to cooperate and it protested the ruling. Furthermore, Skype has also refused to share its source code in the Luxembourg case.

Skype hasn’t issued any comments on the new litigation in the US, but it’s notable that the internet video phone company has successfully deflected alleged patent infringement lawsuits numerous times before. Moreover, the contested patents of Via Vadis were originally filed in 2005, which is some time after various versions of Skype’s P2P technology were already operational. It’s still unclear whether Via Vadis is suggesting that the patents in question apply to technology that Skype has used since that time.

The largest software company in the world, Microsoft, was recently defeated in an appeal to the US Supreme Court concerning the $290 million in damages that it was ordered to pay to Canadian company i4i in a patent dispute case.

i4i had asserted that a particular version of Microsoft Word infringed a patent they hold on a method for document editing. The Supreme Court ruling sets a precedent for companies that contest patents being used in court actions. Essentially, these companies will still have to give persuasive justification that a patent is void so that it is dismissed.

Microsoft had wanted to undermine the standard of proof required in the case. The original suit dates back to 2007, when i4i complained against Microsoft over a patent regarding XML in documents for Word 2007. Microsoft had refuted these claims, suggesting that the patent was void, although the jury scrapped that rebuttal. Microsoft appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Court’s decision against Microsoft will have effects for all future patent cases.

Unanimously, the Supreme Court concurred with the US appeals court when it found in favor of i4i. The high court disapproved of Microsoft’s suggested lower standard. The lowered standard would supplant the long-held prerequisite for defendants in a patent lawsuit to show that a patent is invalid through convincing and clear evidence. Microsoft’s lower standard of proof would have made it easier to invalidate poorly constructed patents. The large software giant further asserted that the lower standard would encourage more competition and innovation.

In justifying the court’s decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court referred to the fact that when the governing standard of proof is originally determined by Congress, this standard usually prevails. Over the past 28 years, Congress had approved and relied on the standard, and the Supreme Court should thus uphold it, according to the court opinion.

An exclusive licensing agreement for a new technology has been signed by Life Technologies, allowing scientists to program and control the genetic circuitry in engineered pathways and organisms. This technology was developed by scientists at Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, and it enables scientists to target and regulate expression within the genome.

Known as Transcription Activator-Like (TAL) Effector Technology, it acts like a navigation system for the genome. Control elements to any specified sequence can be delivered with pinpoint accuracy. TAL Effector technology allows proteins to be designed to target and bind to a chosen DNA sequence. Scientists are then able to deliver elements that control or change particular parts of cellular function. In addition, the technology gives researchers the ability to more accurately study and engineer gene function, with potential applications in energy, agriculture and healthcare.

The licensing agreement marks another step for Life Technologies in their strategic initiative to expand in the rapidly evolving synthetic biology market. This market is estimated to be worth up to $2.4 billion by the year 2013.

Following the licensing agreement, Life Technologies initially plans to offer the TAL Effector technology through its Geneart gene synthesis portfolio. Nonetheless, the company expects that the technology could be applied in other fields like stem cell research, drug discovery and bioproduction as well.

Life Technologies purchased about 59% of Germany’s Geneart in 2010, in order to increase its portfolio of custom gene-synthesis and gene-optimization services. Since then it has upped its investment in the company and now owns a 74% stake.

The TAL Effector platform was previously licensed to the Two Blades Foundation (2Blades) for all applications in plants, and 2Blades was a party to the new licensing agreement with Life Technologies along with the original inventors. While Life Technologies will have access to the technology for plant research, 2Blades retains rights to commercial applications in plants.

Apple has officially intervened in a patent lawsuit that was initiated by Lodsys against several small iOS application developers who operate independently of Apple. These developers petitioned for Apple’s legal help and financial resources in defending against the patent case after receiving letters last month from Lodsys over alleged patent infringement of in-app purchasing technology.

The suit filed against developers by Lodsys, a patent holding company, cites two patents that were allegedly infringed. One patent is U.S. Patent No. 7,620,565 which is related to a customer-based design module. The other patent is U.S. Patent No. 7,222,078 and is in regards to making purchases inside an app.

The U.S. District Court for the eastern district of Texas, where the suit was filed, is likely to allow Apple’s involvement, which is good news for the developers. Apple claims it should be allowed to intervene because it already has a license to the patents in dispute.

Apple’s lawyers argue that this license also expressly permits Apple to offer and otherwise make available to its developers’ products and services that embody the inventions contained within each disputed patent. In addition, Apple claims that the license extends to the APIs it provides its developers for app development. Some of the specific apps that Lodsys has targeted in the suit include Twitterific, Mega Poker, Shadow Era, Labyrinth, Quickoffice, Daggers and Hearts.

Lodsys has responded that Apple’s claim of infallibility has no basis in law or fact, and that developers who continue to infringe will be targeted. They argue that Apple is only an agent of the developer with respect to the distribution of apps. Lodsys also said that it will pay $1,000 to any developer it sends a letter of infringement to, as a guarantee that those developers are not protected by an Apple patent license.