California Patent Attorney - California Patent Lawyer

California - TeleCommunication Systems is known for its groundbreaking advancements in mobile communication technology. It has recently been granted 35 more patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office related to messaging, wireless data, and public safety. Maurice Tose, the chairman, CEO, and president of TeleCommunication Systems stated, "TCS has long been a pioneer and leading innovator in messaging, mobile location/mapping, public safety and wireless technology" and "these 35 new patents - including the 13 mapping & location patents - demonstrate our continued commitment to apply innovative engineering solutions to improve mobile device communications."

The patents related to "Navigation and Route Determination" include U.S. Patent No. 8,090,534 a "Method and System for Enabling an Off-Board Navigation Solution" and U.S. Patent No. 8,169,343 a "Method and System for Saving and Retrieving Spatial Related Information", as well as three other patents. These patents will allow users to request a particular navigation route by voice while also saving the request. The user will also be able to affiliate a certain image to a specific destination or route.

Also added to TeleCommunication's intellectual property portfolio are patents related to the location of a caller and receiver. For example, a person making a phone call will be able to allow the receiver to view the caller's location by viewing their GPS coordinates. The patents associated with the "Locating a User Technique" include U.S. Patent No. 8,165,603 for a "Personal Location Code", U.S. Patent No. 8,126,889 for a "Location Fidelity Adjustment Based on Mobile Subscriber Privacy Profile" and U.S. Patent No. 8,032,112 for "Location Derived Presence Information". With regard to security, the user will also be able to adjust the security settings on their phone to enable or disable a receiver from viewing the location of the user.

Bob Held, a senior director of intellectual asset management for TeleCommunication Systems stated, "there are significant opportunities to leverage our company's 200+ patents and other intellectual property around the world, through both licensing and partnership arrangements in core and non-core business areas." By this statement we can be sure that TeleCommunication Systems has no plans to stop filing patent applications.

California - Facebook has been issued yet another patent related to the News Feed, almost six years after filing for it. Granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the new patent lists co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg as one of the inventors.

The News Feed patent is described as: "Communicating a news feed of media content based on a member's interactions in a social network environment." The invention allows Facebook to let users not only view status messages, photos, and links to videos of online friends, but also particular actions their friends are taking. Such actions could include commenting on posts from other users or playing games.

Facebook's U.S. Patent No. 8,171,128 is further described as: "a system and method for providing dynamically selected media content to someone using an electronic device in a social network environment. Items of media content are selected for the user based on his or her relationships with one or more other users. The user's relationships with other users are reflected in the selected media content and its format. An order is assigned to the items of media content, for example, based on their anticipated importance to the user, and the items of media content are displayed to the user in the assigned order. The user may change the order of the items of media content. The user's interactions with media content available in the social network environment are monitored, and those interactions are used to select additional items of media content for the user."

In its application, Facebook described its method of allowing users to view certain status updates, pictures, links to videos, and their friends' actions. The patent will let Facebook keep a profile of each user on the social network in a database, then identify the relationships between users, generating "stories" based on the connections with each other, and then creating a News Feed for each user.

The patent will also allow Facebook to monitor what actions the viewer takes in response to the stories, such as Liking, Sharing, or Commenting, and then uses that data to generate more stories.

California - FlatWorld Interactives is suing Apple for patent infringement alleging that Apple's touch technology infringes one of FlatWorld's patents. The company out of Pennsylvania is seeking a permanent injunction from the infringement and for compensatory damages as well.

According to the complaint filed with the United States District Court for the Northern California District of California, FlatWorld is accusing Apple of knowingly infringing its patents with products such as its iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad. FlatWorld is a designer of touchscreen systems used in museum displays.

In addition to seeking a jury trial, FlatWorld is requesting an immediate injunction to ban Apple from the alleged infringement. Patent attorneys representing FlatWorld claim that Apple's infringement has been on such a large scale that it has caused the company irreparable harm. Flatworld is seeking monetary damages appropriate to the level of infringement, however the amount was not specified.

The FlatWorld patent at issue involves technology that allows users to manipulate images using gestures such as flicking images off the screen and selecting the image by touching it. The goal of the gesture recognition technique is for children to have an easier and more intuitive way of interacting with computers.

FlatWorld Interactive was founded in January 2007 by cognitive science and digital design professor Slavko Milekic. Ten years earlier in 1997, Milekic had filed a provisional patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the technology, claiming priority of use from that date. He was then granted U.S. Patent No. 6,920,619 in July 2005. After creating FlatWorld in 2007, Milekic assigned the patent to the company.

The companies are scheduled to appear in a case management conference later this year to discuss the important issues in the case to avoid an unnecessary and demanding discovery process when preparing for trial.

No comment was available from Apple on the pending litigation.

California - The Department of Commerce has released a new report titled "Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus," which sets out the pivotal role that intellectual property plays in the U.S. economy.

According to the report, IP related jobs are at the top of the list for newly created jobs and IP-intensive jobs are said to pay at least 42% higher in wages than other popular job sectors at this time. The Department of Commerce Secretary John Bryson stated, "It's clear that intellectual property protection is more critical than ever" and "When Americans know their ideas will be protected, they have greater incentive to pursue advances in technologies. That helps keep us competitive and makes us competitive into the future." According to the Commerce Secretary, "industries affected by intellectual property account for more than 40 million jobs, 61% of exports and more than $775 billion in goods and services."

Most companies want to protect their intellectual property rights whether it is through a patent, copyright, or trademark. A company's intellectual property portfolio is a vital asset to its growth. Therefore, jobs in IP related fields are widely expanding. According to the Economics and Statistics Administration and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in 2010 the 75 IP-intensive related industries produced approximately 35 percent of the gross domestic product in the U.S. or about $5.06 trillion.

The report released from the Department of Commerce, which emphasizes the importance of intellectual property protection, comes just one year after the US International Trade Commission disclosed in a similar report that the lack of monitoring and enforcing of IP rights in China cost U.S. IP-intensive companies $50 billion a year. The report made by the Trade Commission also reports that the lack of worldwide IP protection might also jeopardize up to 2.1 million jobs.

Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stated, "In laboratories and studios and research hubs, and even in home garages, entrepreneurs and innovators are hard at work turning their ideas into real products," and "innovation can't create jobs without strong IP protection."

According to the Department of Commerce report, IP jobs in the U.S. are mainly clustered on the West and East Coasts.

California - Tech giant Oracle has rejected a three million dollar settlement offer from Google in an ongoing patent infringement lawsuit where Oracle is alleging that Google's Android operating system is infringing its Java patents. In addition to the $3 million offer, Google was also willing to pay Oracle one percent of revenue from its Android platform, which was also rejected by Oracle. It has been reported that Oracle is seeking billions of dollars in damages for the alleged infringement.

With its settlement attempts turned down, the two companies will present their cases in front of a federal grand jury later this month.

"Oracle cannot agree to Google's proposal that Oracle waive its constitutional right to a jury trial," stated lawyers for Oracle in a court document filed last week. They added, "Although there are issues for the Court to decide, there are substantial questions for the jury as well."

The original patent infringement claims against Google were filed back in August 2010, and alleged that the maker of the Android operating system "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property" and sought "appropriate remedies." The specific patent at issue involves the technology for the Dalvik virtual machine used in the Android systems.

Google has challenged Oracle's claims of patent infringement and has used the argument that it had rights to use the Java patents in a pre-existing agreement with Sun Microsystems, who developed and owned the patents before the company was acquired by Oracle in April 2009.

Earlier this year, the most widely-used web-based search engine in the world suffered a major setback in the lawsuit when its bid to have an incriminating company email dismissed from evidence was denied by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The email was sent between Google engineers and strongly suggested that Google was indeed infringing the Java patents and that it should negotiate a licensing deal with Oracle, because no other technologies would be appropriate for use with Android and Chrome.

Both Oracle and Google denied to further comment on the issue.

California - Should human genes be allowed to be patented? This question has fueled the ongoing debate between organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union who argues that genes shouldn't be patented. On the other side of the fence are companies who pose the argument that a patent is a reward for time and money spent on research. Just last week the U.S. Supreme Court overturned two gene patents belonging to Myriad Genetics. The Salt Lake City, Utah based company uses BRACAnalysis testing which looks for mutations on the breast cancer predisposition gene. This testing is also known as BRCA, which locates mutations that are associated with much larger risks of breast and ovarian cancer.

In 2009, the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation challenged Myriad's two patents known as BRCA1 and BRCA 2 when it sued Myriad in the U.S. District Court of New York. In 2010, a U.S. District judge in New York agreed with the plaintiff's and deemed the patents invalid. However, in 2011 the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. overturned the ruling in a 2-1 decision. The plaintiff's then brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court where it ordered that there be further review of the gene patents case by a lower court.

In a similar case, the U.S. Supreme Court also recently ruled that Prometheus Laboratories was not eligible for a blood test patent because the patent "merely reflected a law of nature." It is still questionable as to just how much the Prometheus case will affect Myriad's chance of keeping its gene patents once and for all.

Peter Meldrum, Myriad Genetics CEO and President stated in a news release, "While this case should not have any direct impact to Myriad and its operations because of our extensive patent estate, it has great importance to the medical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other commercial industries, as well as the hundreds of millions of people whose lives are bettered by the products these industries develop based on the promise of strong patent protection."

Caliornia - The United States Patent and Trademark Office re-affirmed four patents (US 7,459,547, US 7,732,593, US 7,772,203 and US 7,750,144) known as the "Zamore Design Rule" patents following a re-examination requested by an anonymous third party, which previously issued as patents last year. The "Zamore Design Rule" patents are owned by the University of Massachusetts and are exclusively licensed to Silence Therapeutics. What makes these patents important is that they cover methods of promoting the incorporation of a desired guide strand into the RNA-Inducing Silencing Complex (RISC) through structural modifications, resulting in more effective and selective RNAi knockdown. By increasing the effectiveness of RNAi therapeutics, unwanted cellular activity and side effects are minimized.

More specifically, the "Zamore Design Rule" patents describe methods of enhancing the ability of an antisense strand of an RNAi agent to act as a guide strand; codify RNAi and siRNA agents for enhancing silencing of a target mRNA in an organism; and cover the composition of siRNA duplexes, pre-miRNA and shRNA in the process of RNA interference.

With this ruling, Silence Therapeutics will receive broad patent coverage for all structural and chemical approaches that incorporate bioinformatics pre-selection sequence algorithms in finding efficacious RNAi triggers. Any company using modified nucleotides for any purpose may have to be concerned that their process will infringe on Silence's patents.

Dr. Phillip Zamore, innovator of this process and professor of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, stated, "the initial granting of these patents was a significant milestone in the translation of the basic science of RNA interference into the real world of RNA therapeutics."

After a patent has been unsuccessfully challenged through re-examination, its value is considered higher. Knowing its proven value, companies such as Novartis are expressing interest in licensing the "Zamore Design Rule" patents.

California - Patently Apple announced Wednesday, March 7, 2012, that Apple's patent for iWallet has been approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patently Apple reports, "Today, Apple has been granted a major iWallet patent and it's one that has never been reported on before. Apple's patent reviews credit card transaction rules and shows us that the credit card companies will be sending statements directly to your iTunes account." The iWallet patent, which first appeared in May 2010, will allow users to purchase items, set spending limits, receive credit card statements, and much more all through iTunes.

iWallet will also contain a restriction feature which will allow parents or employers to set restriction controls such as blocking certain retailers and would decline a transaction and send an email alert when such a transaction has been attempted. If a minor used the iWallet, a parent could set restrictions similar to the television or internet. For example, using iTunes a parent could block alcohol or tobacco retailers and if their child attempted to purchase an item at the blocked retailer, the parent would be sent an email notification and the purchase would be declined. This feature would also benefit an employer and employee, allowing an employer to view purchases and allow set spending limits at retailer stores such as gas stations.

The iWallet patent figures include images consisting of an iPhone screen with an application referred to as "Card Profile", where the user could go to customize their settings and input their credit card information, set billing alerts, add or remove credit cards users, etc. The iWallet feature would be located in the iTunes application under "Services".

With this exciting news, Patently Apple stated in their report "Who knows, perhaps one day Apple's iWallet will rule the world: the financial world that is." This statement may have some truth to it when it comes to ruling the world, the World Wide Web that is.

California - A group of scientific researchers in Mexico have successfully patented a vaccine in the United States that will help reduce heroine addiction in drug users. The scientists at Mexico's National Institute of Psychiatry claim that the patented vaccine has been successfully tested on laboratory mice and will soon be tested on humans addicted to the dangerous narcotic.

Over the past decade, the country of Mexico has grappled with relentless drug-related violence as Mexican cartels compete to control the trafficking of illegal drugs into the United States. In January 2012, the Mexican government reported that 47,515 people had been murdered in drug-related violence since President Calderon began a military assault on the cartels in 2006. Mexico has also reported an increase in its own citizens addicted to the substance, with over 500,000 drug addicts, mostly along the trafficking corridors of the Mexico-U.S. border.

The vaccine which is already patented in the United States, helps reduce addiction in users by making the body resistant to the effects of heroine, so that the users would no longer receive a rush of pleasure after smoking or injecting the drug. The scientists have reportedly received funds from both the Mexican and United States government in order to continue their research and testing of the vaccine.

"It would be a vaccine for people who are serious addicts, who have not had success with other treatments and decide to use this application to get away from drugs," stated Maria Elena Medina, Mexico's National Institute of Psychiatry's director.

Currently, the most common addiction management drug treatment is Methadone. Methadone is useful in the treatment of opioid dependence and in high doses, can block the feelings of euphoria caused by taking heroin, morphine, and similar drugs. Although proven to be effective at managing addiction, many unpleasant side effects have been reported from Methadone use.

During the testing phase on the mice, the animals were given access to measured deposits of heroin given over an extended period of time. The mice that were administered the vaccine demonstrated a huge decrease in consumption of the drug, therefore giving the scientists hope that the vaccine could be effective on humans as well.

If proven successful in humans, the patented vaccine could be available in the U.S. medical market in five years. The United States National Institute on Drug Abuse is reportedly working on creating a similar vaccine, one that would treat cocaine abuse instead.

California - Ford Motor Company's innovations in fuel-efficient hybrid technology have led to a fifty-fold increase in hybrid patents for the automobile manufacturer, which takes it close to holding five hundred patents for the technology. Ford's new patented technologies are expected to help the new Fusion Hybrid achieve an impressive forty-seven miles per gallon, making it America's most fuel-efficient non-rechargeable sedan.

In the past few years, the Dearborn Michigan motor company has beefed up its efforts at growing its intellectual property portfolio with major investments during the country's economic slump.

A patent attorney working for Ford commented that the company doesn't engage in the practice of collecting patents simply for the mere sake of having a large portfolio. "We get the high-quality patents that Ford really needs. With the high level of innovation from our people, it makes sense that we should see our hybrid patent levels increase the way they have," stated the attorney.

The new Ford Fusion Hybrid is the first sedan to use gasoline, hybrid, and plug-in power trains, all three expected to have top fuel economy.

"Ford continued to invest to develop new products like our new Fusion hybrids during the depths of our economic downturn," stated Chuck Gray, Ford chief engineer of Global Core Engineering Hybrid and Electric Vehicles. "We succeeded in transforming our lineup with leading fuel efficiency, thanks in part to the many Ford inventors who are helping make our Fusion Hybrid America's most fuel-efficient sedan."

Ford's promising future in hybrid technology can be attributed to its electrified vehicle team, including inventor Ming Kuang, who has helped grow Ford's hybrid patent portfolio from a mere ten in 2000, to the nearly five hundred today. Kuang is a technical leader in vehicle controls at Ford Electrification Research and Advanced Engineering in Dearborn.

The innovative technology developed by Kuang and his counterparts can be found throughout Ford's recently transformed lineup of vehicles. One third of these vehicles will reportedly feature a model that gets 40 miles per gallon or more in 2012 and help build the company's commitment to future hybrid innovation by offering fuel-efficiency-minded buyers the power of choice.

In addition to the Fusion Hybrid's unprecedented 47 mpg city and 44 mpg highway, Ford is also introducing its new Fusion Energi this fall. The Energi is anticipated to deliver more than 100 MPGe, which is more than the projected fuel efficiency of the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid.

California - A new patent that has been recently granted to Apple has the potential of locking Facebook out of a much sought after area of growth, which is using credits to acquire such "media items" as songs, videos, images, e-books, and podcasts. The definition of "digital asset" also raises questions of whether Zynga's virtual goods, the bulk of its revenue, would also fall under this patent. Zynga offers browser-based games that work as application widgets on Facebook.

Proven that it is unafraid to litigate, Cupertino, California based Apple has demonstrated that it is willing to use its patents as ammunition in the mobile computing market. For instance, its patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung in Australia has expanded to include 278 patent claims. Based on its litigious history, we can only expect that Apple will start to use its portfolio of patents to attack competitors in its widening spheres of operations.

The recently awarded patent number 8,112,360 was originally filed in May 2006 and is known as Digital Media Acquisition Using Credit. A description of the functions of the patent include, a method for acquiring a media item from an online media store using a credit, said method including at least: (a) identifying a media item from being purchased by a purchaser, the media item having a purchase cost associated therewith; (b) determining whether the media item is permitted to be acquired using an item credit, the determining being based on at least the purchase cost and a country of origin for the purchaser, wherein said determining (b) includes at least: (b1) determining a media type for the media item; and (b2) determining whether the media type is permitted to be acquired using an item credit; (c) determining whether the purchaser has at least one item credit available at the online media store; and (d) thereafter applying the item credit associated with the purchaser so as to reduce or eliminate the purchase cost of the media item when said determining (b) determines that the media item is permitted to be acquired using an item credit.

As Facebook has witnessed from both Apple and Amazon, media sales could be an important vehicle in driving growth. Many media-centered companies, such as Zynga, are interested in having access to Facebook users, however Facebook demands that Zynga or anyone else interested in using its network to trade in virtual goods must use Facebook credits to complete the transaction. Since Facebook monitors the location of where its users are connecting from, that could put any media sales directly under the new Apple patent.

Apple clearly did not file the patent with the goal of shutting Facebook out of the digital media acquisition market. After all, the patent was filed while Facebook was still in the works in a Harvard dorm room. But with the social network's explosive growth over the past five years, this may indeed become Apple's intention.

California - An appeals board for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently invalidated a third patent from tech licensing company Rambus Incorporated. According to legal documents, Rambus has used the patents to win several patent infringement lawsuits against Hewlett-Packard, Nvidia Corp., and others. The previous two patents were invalidated in September.

The three patents that the USPTO has declared invalid are known as the Barth patents and involve DDR-SDRAM memory chip technology used in personal computers. Rambus, established in 1990, has long considered the Barth patents to be among its most valued intellectual property. By aggressively using the three memory chip patents to pursue patent infringement claims against technology companies, Rambus has earned millions of dollars in licensing fees from settlement agreements resulting from its patent infringement claims.

The most recent patent invalidation by the USPTO comes as bad news to Rambus, whose stock fell sixty percent after a November 16 court decision in which it lost a $4 billion antitrust lawsuit against Micron Technology Inc. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. The company's stock share prices fluctuate dramatically based on the successes and failures of its intellectual property in litigation and licensing deals.

The three Barth patents were also among six that Rambus accused a long list of technology companies of infringing in a 2011 complaint with the United States International Trade Commission. The list of companies included in the Trade Commission complaint included STMicroelectonics, MediaTek, Broadcom, and others. Broadcom has since settled the lawsuit.

It remains unclear whether Rambus has filed an appeal with the USPTO to the September invalidation of two of the Barth patents. If the company were to appeal the invalidation of the third Barth patent, it would be sent back to the patent examiner for review, who would be unlikely to disrupt the decision of the appeals board. Once the appeals process at the USPTO has been exhausted, Rambus will be able to dispute the patent invalidations to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C..

California - In its efforts to speed up the proceedings in a copyright trial, Oracle said that it is willing to drop charges in its patent infringement lawsuit against Google. The move is intended to avoid delays so that Oracle can speed up an injunction against Google involving copyright infringement.

The injunction at issue is over Android's use of the Java technology platform. According to the complaint, filed in the Northern District of California in 2010, Google's Android operating system has been infringing on Oracle's patents and copyrights for Java. In 2009 Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java. Throughout the lawsuit, Google has maintained that it had a prior licensing agreement with Sun Microsystems to use Java before the Oracle purchase.

Now, in a recent filing, Oracle is placing all bets on the copyright infringement portion of the case to ban infringing Android phones using the Java application. In a number of options laid out to the court, Oracle initially requests that the court "sever and stay" the patent infringement claims and set a trial date on the copyright claims for the near future. During the time that the jury will hear the copyright infringement claims, Oracle plans to work on coming up with a damages estimate, which has been one of the current delays in the case. At the conclusion of the copyright infringement portion of the case, the court could then re-focus on hearing the patent infringement claims.

If the court neither stays nor dismisses the patent claims, Oracle proposed another scenario that would put the trial date for both patent and copyright infringement claims in the next few months. In the recent filing, Oracle stated that it won't back down on its plan to present the so-called Lindholm email to a jury, a piece of evidence that Google has fought to prevent Oracle from showing. Lindholm's email message sent to Google engineers suggests that Google knew it needed a license from Oracle to use Java.

"What we've actually been asked to do by Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] is to investigate what technology alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome," Google engineer Tim Lindholm wrote in his email. "We've been over a hundred of these and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java," Lindholm added in his email referring to Google's co-founders.

Despite the email, Google continues to deny any wrongdoing.

California - Apple now owns an important patent directly related to the way users handle multitouch products. The patent describes how a touchscreen device recognizes touch events. Specifically, it encompasses an oscillator signal and touchscreen-equipped device circuits.

In the filing, Apple states, "In general, multi-touch panels may be able to detect multiple touches (touch events or contact points) that occur at or about the same time, and identify and track their locations."

Steve Jobs alluded to this patent as one of the "200 plus Patents for new inventions" when he announced the original iPhone several years ago. The new patent rounds out Apple's patent portfolio and gives it important legal ground against infringing products such as touch-screen mobile phones and tablets. Apple obtained this patent after a decision on December 19 by the U.S. International Trade Commission resulting in a ban on HTC Android handset imports because they infringe on an Apple patent for Data Detectors.

Prior to the iPhone, most touch devices worked using a single-touch stimulation using resistive touchscreens. The pressure of a stylus or finger would connect two electrically resistive sheets separated by a gap. This action created a voltage division that would be detected by a device controller to record the change. Unfortunately, resistive displays can only recognize stimulation from a single input even though many objects could be touching a screen at once.

Apple solved this problem by generating an oscillating signal circuit to record many touches at a time. A device using this technology would be able to record and power inputs from a touchscreen. However, Apple faced difficulties in making this type of circuit precise. The Apple patent provides a solution by using a technology called calibration logic circuitry to compare the oscillation's signal to a reference signal. The patent describes a display that can sense pressure from many touches with accuracy. It can also detect near touches and recognizes them as "touch events."

The patent states that the invention applies to a wide range of computing devices like laptops, desktops, handheld devices or tablets, including mobile phones, digital music players and video players. It could also apply to public systems like ATM machines and kiosks.

California - M-Edge Accessories filed a lawsuit against Amazon for infringing on its patents for Kindle case designs by copying case designs and colors. M-Edge also alleges that Amazon engaged in unfair tactics, false advertising, intentional interference with contracts, and fraud.

The Kindle e-reader device has revolutionized the online reading experience, bringing Amazon increased revenues from e-book purchases, hardware, and related goods. M-Edge, a company well known to any Kindle-user, provides stylish jackets and cases to suit every Kindle model. In October of 2008, M-edge began to sell the Kindle jackets and paid Amazon an 8% commission. The brand proved popular with customers, who liked the array of modern designs. In February 2009, Amazon and M-Edge entered into a "Kindle Compatible" agreement, allowing M-Edge products to be featured in the Kindle Store in return for a 15% commission to Amazon. As one of Amazon's "special partners" M-Edge seemed poised to benefit from the relationship. In the beginning, the match seemed like a good fit.

The relationship began to sour in May 2009, when Amazon asked M-Edge for direct sale of its products, and M-Edge refused, citing poor terms as its reason. In January 2010, Amazon asked M-Edge to pay a 32% commission. M-Edge refused and Amazon responded by threatening to delist the company's products. In February 2010, Amazon charged M-Edge $600,000 for back payments at the 32% rate. M-Edge refused to pay Amazon. In April 2010, Amazon made a second request for a direct sales agreement. M-Edge refused to sign it because it lacked a guaranteed minimum volume.

In May 2010, Amazon requested a 25% retroactively applied fee agreement. If M-Edge didn't comply, Amazon threatened to delist M-Edge's products and to restructure its product changes so users would not be able to find M-Edge products. Amazon also threatened to restrict pre-launch access to its Kindle 3, which would prevent M-Edge from designing jackets for the launch. In July 2010, M-Edge agreed to Amazon's demands because it relied on Amazon for 90% of its sales. The same month Amazon only allowed M-Edge a day of pre-release Kindle 3 access. Then, in January 2011, Amazon demanded that M-Edge pay $150,000 for an Amazon executive salary, and requested a larger share of M-Edge sales. By March, Amazon had withheld $2 million in M-Edge payments because M-Edge did not agree to the January terms. That July, Amazon asked for a 34% commission. The following month, Amazon charged M-Edge fees for products not showing an Amazon logo. M-Edge refused to pay, stating that it had never developed the products in question. In September, Amazon excluded M-Edge from the "Amazon Approved Accessory Vendor" list, causing customers to reject M-Edge. Then Amazon demanded $953,000 in back payments. M-Edge argued that it only owed $40,000. In November, Amazon terminated the 2009 agreement with M-Edge due to "repeated failure to perform its obligations under the Agreement."

M-Edge filed suit this month with claims backed by business documents, e-mails and contracts. M-Edge seeks damages for patent-infringement and an injunction requiring Amazon to remove infringing Kindle jackets from the marketplace.