Nokia, HTC, Motorola and more take to Twitter to rain on Apple’s big day

Not everyone was all that happy to let Apple have its day in the spotlight and leave it at that. Of course, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that competing companies would take to Twitter to try to draw a bit of attention away from Apple and its iPhone announcements. Some worked well, some didn’t, and some were just odd, so let’s round up the most notable.

Our favorite was likely Nokia, but that’s mostly because we freaking loveBreaking Bad, and we definitely agree that “Real gangsters don’t use gold phones.” Motorola used the time to simply link to its recently released “Lazy Phone” ads with TJ Miller. The official Windows Phone Twitter account went the GIF route to show off the Lumia 1020 camera. Then, there was Denny’s which you certainly wouldn’t expect, but that was definitely a good one.

HTC bombed the day, in our opinion. HTC didn’t have any images prepared, and didn’t even seem to have a good writing team on the job, so rather than pithy, it just came off as mean-spirited. Oh well. They can’t all be winners.

Android dominates smartphones in Q3 2012, Samsung widens its sales lead

Android continues expanding its dominance of the smartphone market, Samsung keeps on increasing its lead as the biggest smartphone maker and Nokia slips catastrophically in Q3 2012. That is a quick summary of what happened in the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest numbers by Gartner.

The analytics company concludes that while overall phone sales dropped slightly, smartphone sales are growing rapidly rising by 46.9% in Q3 2012.

Samsung cemented its position as the most prolific phone manufacturer selling nearly 98 million devices in the quarter.

Judge concerned that Apple wants to use Motorola offer for FRAND patent fee as a negotiating tool

With the Apple-Motorola Mobility FRAND patent trial set to begin Monday at 1pm, Judge Barbara Crabb responded negatively to Apple’s stated willingness to enter into a licensing agreement with Motorola Mobility for the right to use the latter’s standards-essential patents, only if it didn’t have to pay more than $1 per Apple iPhone. The judge noted her thoughts in an “Opinion and Order” entered with the court on Friday. Judge Crabb does not want to order Motorola to make an offer to Apple if the Cupertino based firm is going to use that offer as a negotiating tool, and she now “believe[s] it would be inappropriate to grant Apple’s clarified request for specific performance”. She added that if ordering Motorola to make an offer to Apple would end all of the patent litigation or extended negotiations, she would have granted Apple’s request for specific performance, but “it is now clear that specific performance would not resolve those concerns”.

Judge Crabb is not happy with Apple

Apple tells court it would pay no more than $1 per iPhone to license Motorola patents

Apple has indicated to a Wisconsin court that it is willing to pay Google-owned Motorola Mobility to license standard-essential wireless patents, but it will not pay more than $1 per iPhone sold.

The admission by Apple marks the first time the company has indicated it would license standard-essential patents from Motorola, according to Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents. Apple said that if the court sets a FRAND rate at or below $1, the company will take a license and start paying Motorola immediately.

But if the court sets a royalty rate higher than $1 per iPhone, Apple has signaled that it will appeal the decision and make it more difficult for Motorola and Google to collect.

There are now over 1 billion smartphone users on the planet

In Q3 of 2012, a pretty significant milestone has been reached, according to a study by the research experts at Strategy Analytics. It is estimated that the total number of smartphone owners worldwide has surpassed the 1 billion mark for the first time ever since smartphones came to be back in 1996. In comparison, the figure stood at 0.7 billion at the end of Q3, 2011. That’s huge!

Think of it this way: one in seven people around the globe have some kind of a smartphone, be it an iPhone, an Android handset, a Symbian device, or any kind of phone worthy of being called smart. But what’s even more exciting is that the numbers are to go higher at an even more ridiculous pace, if the research is correct.

German court rules that Motorola, Samsung don’t violate Apple touch event patent

Motorola and Samsung just caught a break from the law after a few hard knocks. A Mannheim, Germany court has ruled that neither company infringes on an Apple patent covering how an OS responds to and ignores touch events. While we don’t yet know the full details, patent lawsuit guru Florian Mueller suggests that the German judge took the same point of view that thwarted Apple’s claims in the Netherlands and the UK: the particular patent was just too broad to stick. It’s a potentially important win, as a ruling of violation could have led to serious problems with keeping Android-based Motorola and Samsung devices in stores; other patents are more easily circumvented.

Microsoft wins injunction against Motorola in German court, aims to strike patent license deal

Motorola and Microsoft are no strangers to the patent war tango, and today marks the third injunction against the Droid maker in the German court. Judge Dr. Guntz of the Munich I regional court ruled that Motorola infringes on a Microsoft patent for “soft input panel system and method,” granting Microsoft the ability to ban sales of some Motorola devices in the country. Essentially, the patent in question covers the software required to let applications flexibly receive input from different sources, such as the touchscreen keyboard and voice input.

Motorola RAZR i with 2.0GHz Intel processor gets benchmarked Motorola RAZR i with 2.0GHz Intel processor gets benchmarked

Motorola were quick to tell us that we’re testing on pre-release RAZR i here — software updates may arrive before the device does, but these figures below should give you a good estimate at what the 2GHz Intel processor can do. We’ve pitched it against the US-bound Droid RAZR M, with a capable dual-core Snapdragon S4 clocked at 1.5GHz, and ZTE’s Grand X IN, which houses Intel’s 1.6MHz Medfield Z2460 and Android ICS.

Apple tries again to take Motorola Mobility to court to protect its 3G/4G devices

Will Apple have better legal luck this time around against Motorola Mobility? The Cupertino based firm has a fear of having to remove from its online store, those devices using a Qualcomm broadband chip for use in 3G/4G connectivity. That would include the Apple iPhone 4S, the 4G version of the Apple iPad and the upcoming Apple iPhone 5. To prevent this from happening, Apple had previously tried to take Google’s wholly owned subsidiary Motorola Mobility to court to legally cement its position as a third party beneficiary of a Motorola-Qualcomm product license agreement, giving Apple the right to use certain Qualcomm patents.