October 4, 2011 - In a new twist for the mobile electronics industry, Apple has refused to talk patent licensing with its competitor, Samsung - and will thus block the launch of Samsung's Galaxy Tab mobile computing device in Australia.

Samsung's Galaxy products have been found to infringe Apple's patents. Normally, that would mean that Samsung could take a license under the patents and continue to do business.

September 30, 2011 - Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC, a Delaware-based company, filed a flurry of patent infringement lawsuits against branches of major hotel chains including Hyatt Corporation, Marriott Hotels, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ramada Inn, Best Western, Days Inn, Super 8 Hotels, and Travelodge - in all, more than 220 individual hotels in Illinois.

Innovatio claims that the hotels' offering of wireless local area network (WLAN) technology to its customers infringes 17 of its 31 patents.

July 18, 2011 - A story in the Guardian reported that many app developers are withdrawing their products from the US versions of the Apple App Store and Google's Android Market because they fear being sued by companies such as Lodsys, which earlier this year launched a lawsuit against several developers of iPhone apps.

July 11, 2011 – Though it didn’t get as much press as the “first to invent” change, Section 18 of the Senate version of the America Invents Act (S. 23) – a provision making it easier for the banking industry to invalidate business method patents – fueled speculation that Wall Street had bought a favor from Congress.

The provision was introduced by Charles Schumer (D-NY) as a result of the litigation headaches his big bank constituents were suffering from a company called DataTreasury Corporation.

July 11, 2011 – As the America Invents Act has now passed in both the Senate and House and is approaching enactment, many independent inventors and smaller businesses are worried about one of its provisions: the change from a "first to invent" to a "first to file" patent system.

July 8, 2011 - Following the sale of Nortel Networks' patent portfolio to a six-company coalition of Google's rivals, federal antitrust enforcers are investigating whether the coalition's purchase of the patents constitutes unfair competition against Google.

June 16, 2011 - Larry Lockwood received patents in 1994 and 2001 on e-commerce systems for searching, retrieving and displaying goods and services. Then he set up a successful licensing campaign from his La Jolla, CA home, signing patent licensing deals with companies large and small. It seemed that he was truly getting his money's worth from his patents.

June 16, 2011 - Righthaven LLC, a company that has been described by its critics as a "copyright troll" for filing over 300 copyright infringement lawsuits over newspaper articles posted on websites, was dealt a blow by a judge who ruled that the company lacked standing (meaning the right) to bring suit.

June 15, 2011 - A California judge ruled that jurors will not be informed by the court that Rambus' opponents have already proven that Rambus shredded documents as patent infringement litigation loomed. Instead, Micron and Hynix will have to present evidence that the shredding of hundreds of boxes of documents was a deliberate part of the company's legal strategy.

Just last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled that Rambus was wrong to shred the documents.

June 10, 2011 - Microsoft received a major blow on June 9 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected its appeal in its patent infringement lawsuit with i4i, a Canadian company that first sued the software giant in 2007. The Court upheld the rulings of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit - along with the $290 million judgment against Microsoft.