The next step in Apple's goal of making the iPhone the sole thing anyone has to carry, continues with the device being able to securely replace passports, driver's licenses, and other physical forms of identification.

In the current climate of escalating competition and tension between the United States and China on the technology front, Mara Hvistendahl’s The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage is a very timely book that illuminates the various facets of the nexus between intellectual property protection, industrial espionage and national security.

The technology behind the patent would seek to eliminate the headache of ruined multiplayer matches when a player rage quits or is disconnected.

You probably don’t remember the day the White House issued its 2013 open access memo, but I’ll never forget it. That’s the rule that requires any research funded by the federal government to be made available to the public one year (at most) after publication. I was working back then at Creative Commons, an organization that advocates for strong open access policies. I remember saying to a colleague, “Well, time to find a new cause.”

The patent, granted on Tuesday and filed in March 2015, details a system for users to make cryptocurrency payments with email addresses linked to corresponding wallet addresses. The sender makes a request to send cryptocurrency to an email address, and the system automatically transmits the agreed amount – so long as they have the required balance – from the sender's wallet to the wallet corresponding to the receiver's email address.

On Dec. 26, Sony was approved for a patent on a new type of PlayStation controller. The patent is on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) database, but it isn’t quite clear what Sony intends to do with the controller. The design itself is similar to the familiar DualShock 4 design that most players are used to with the PlayStation 4. The new controller has the same layout for its face buttons, directional pad, and analog sticks. The only real departure on the front of the controller is that there’s no PlayStation button visible on the patent design.

Elektrek reports that Tesla is patenting a new chemical additive to improve lithium ion battery technology. The company's solution—literally, it’s electrolytes with additives dissolved inside—works with nickel manganese cobalt compound (NMC) lithium ion batteries and other kinds.

Three decades ago, two stoner musicians designed a product whose cheap imitations sold into the billions — but today, nobody knows their names

The European Union needs to take action against "patent trolls," Apple has urged as part of a group of tech companies and car manufacturers, with the growth of non-practicing entities stifling innovation in firms who try to exploit the entire patent system for financial gain.

Caltech claims Apple and Broadcom infringed four of its patents by using wifi chips in hundreds of millions of iPhones.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a 2018 decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that upheld the validity of U.S. Patent No. 7,116,710, granted to Caltech in 2006, reports Bloomberg Law. Apple in a parallel filing challenged the wireless technology patent covering data coding systems on grounds that the invention is obvious and therefore not eligible for protection under patent law.

While the device's chief components would remain the same, future Apple Watches may come with a housing that is made in part from plastic and ceramic fibres.

Just as Touch ID began on its iPhone before spreading to iPad, and then both the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, so Face ID is coming to Apple's range of Macs. It's been rumored before, and Apple has said that Face ID will come to more devices, but a new patent application is the first to specify that it will be brought to some form of MacBook.

New research from Apple details many different ways of making batteries flexible enough to be used with foldable displays in an iPhone or iPad, or to save space inside regular devices.

Following similar decisions from European agencies.

A unique challenge is emerging in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine: how to balance intellectual property rights with serving the public good. Unfortunately, very few pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporations are participating in the pledge.

Do it for the ‘gram but not in person

A new Sony patent hints at the possibility of tablet style, motion controlled gaming. It's called the "EyePad". Because that's totally not confusing. Sony has a long proud history of "Eye" devices, such as the EyeToy and the PlayStation Eye.

Despite all the progress and publicity that 3-D printing saw in 2012, there are a batch of active patents that threaten the progress of the industry, especially advancement in consumer-grade products from upstart manufacturers.

The good folks at Reason TV have put together a new video called How Patent Trolls Kill Innovation.