Mobile technology company Qualcomm absorbed another legal blow Monday when a British court ruled its claims of patent infringement against handset maker Nokia were invalid.

The U.K. High Court said Nokia Corp., the world's largest mobile phone maker by sales, had not infringed two patents regarding GSM mobile phone standards.

Qualcomm Inc. has been trying to bring an injunction against Nokia that would prevent it from selling products using the GSM patents in the U.K. GSM, or Global System for Mobile Communications, is the world's dominant second-generation mobile phone technology standard.

Qualcomm, which has filed 11 lawsuits around the world against Nokia in the past two years, has failed to win over the courts in its fight the Finnish handset maker.

"We are pleased with the Court's decision that the patent claims are invalid and believe it is consistent with and supported by the facts," said Nokia Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson. "This is the second court to conclude that Qualcomm does not have relevant and valid GSM patents."

Last week, the U.S. International Trade Commission turned down Qualcomm's petition for a review of an earlier decision, which said Nokia hadn't infringed on three patents, as claimed by Qualcomm.

The two mobile phone-technology giants have tussled in court over patent-licensing agreements that expired in April last year. Qualcomm charges patent royalties to mobile phone makers, which Nokia and some other companies say are excessive.

Richard Windsor, an analyst at Japanese investment bank Nomura said that the focus now shifts to a Delaware Court and a 3G patent dispute, where arguments are expected to begin this summer.

"Qualcomm is weak in GSM and we think it has been deploying a strategy of firing out legal long-shots," said Windsor. "The hope is that a victory in one of these cases will bring Nokia to the negotiating table, but, so far, it's not achieved this."

"The main focus now is going to be the Delaware case in July," said Windsor. "However, it's our view that Qualcomm is unlikely to prevail in that case either."

Andrew Gilbert, president of Qualcomm in Europe, said the British court's decision was "not devastating."

EBay Inc. said Thursday it has settled a long-running patent dispute over features on its Web site that allowed customers to purchase items without using the company's popular auction service.

The dispute with MercExchange LLC revolved around the "buy it now" feature used on eBay's site. The company was sued over the matter in 2001 and saw the case wind all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a decision that resulted to changes in how patent owners can block use of their patents. See full story.

In a statement Thursday, eBay said it reached a settlement with MercExchange -- as patent holding firm -- to dismiss all claims under the lawsuit.

Under the terms of the settlement, eBay said it will buy three patents involved in the case as well as some additional technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed, though the company said the settlement will not affect its results or outlook for 2008.

A federal court which hears patent appeals told a lower court on Tuesday to reconsider damages that Microsoft must pay a Guatemalan inventor for infringing his software in its popular Office Suite. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit tossed out the damages award of 12 cents per copy because the lower court failed to explain how it calculated the award.

At issue is a software program, which was patented by inventor Carlos Armando Amado, that links databases and spreadsheets. Amado sued Microsoft in 2003, alleging that several versions of Office Suite infringed his patent.

A jury ruled in favor of Amado and awarded him 4 cents per infringing unit. The case was appealed and then remanded to a district court, which tripled the damage award.

In the latest appeal, Microsoft asked for damages to be held at the jury award of 4 cents per copy of Microsoft's Office Suite sold with the infringing software. Amado asked for $2.00 per copy, an amount ordered held in escrow.

"Because the district court failed to adequately explain the basis for its award of $0.12 per infringing unit sold during the stay of the permanent injunction, however, and because recent Supreme Court action may affect post-verdict damages, we vacate in part and remand," the appeals court said.

The appeals court said it took no position on the proper amount of damages, saying that "logically" the award should "fall somewhere between" 4 cents and $2 per copy.

The new ruling also said that the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California "did not abuse its discretion" by dissolving its permanent injunction barring Microsoft from using the software.

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has sued Motorola, over what the Canadian company says are patent infringements and "exorbitant" licensing fees, according to court documents. The civil action, filed on Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges that Motorola infringed on a number of patents held by RIM.

In addition, RIM alleges that Motorola "is demanding exorbitant royalties...for patents that Motorola claims are essential to various standards for mobile wireless telecommunications and wireless computing that RIM practices."

This includes technology that allows mobile telephone handset users to use Wi-Fi, RIM said.

At the same time, Motorola is refusing to acknowledge or pay royalties for certain patents held by RIM, the BlackBerry-maker said.

RIM claims that Motorola's response to the "declining fortunes" of its own handset business can been seen in dramatic increases in royalties charged to RIM. None of the allegations has been proved in court.

RIM's worldwide subscriber base of about 12 million includes business executives, politicians and professionals who rely on the BlackBerry to send secure e-mails. BlackBerry has been expanding from its mainstay enterprise market into the consumer sector with sleeker handsets that offer a range of services in addition to e-mail.

In one of the largest awards ever in a U.S. patent matter, a Texas jury has ordered Boston Scientific to pay $431.8 million in damages after ruling the company's made-in-Minnesota heart stents infringe on a doctor's patent. Natick, Mass.-based Boston Scientific said Tuesday the federal court jury in Marshall, Texas, ruled the company's Taxus Express and Taxus Liberte stents infringed on the patent of Dr. Bruce Saffran, an interventional radiologist in New Jersey. The jury also found Saffran's 11-year-old patent is valid.

In a statement, Boston Scientific said it believed the jury's verdict is unsupported by both the evidence and the law. As a result, the company said it would seek to overturn the verdict in post-trial motions and, if unsuccessful, appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

"We do not intend to record a charge at this time because we believe we will prevail on appeal," said company spokesman Paul Donovan.

Barbara Wrigley, a patent attorney with Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly in Minneapolis who was not involved with the case, said the jury award easily stands as one of the 10 largest ever in the U.S. An appeal likely would take about two years, Wrigley estimated, and the matter could drag on even longer if the case is then sent back to the lower court for reconsideration.

"It's not unusual for an individual inventor to win an award like this," Wrigley said, adding a jury's perception is of a David-like underdog going up against a Goliath-like
corporation.

Stents are metal mesh tubes used to prop open heart arteries, and the Taxus stent has generated billions in sales for Boston Scientific's stent division in Maple Grove. The stent is coated with drugs that prevent arteries from re-clogging - a development that helped make stents blockbuster products in 2003 and 2004.

Gary Hoffman, an attorney who represented Saffran, said his client came up with the essential concept behind drug coated-stents while completing his residency at a hospital in Boston. Saffran worked at home with makeshift materials in coming up with the idea for placing a layer of material on devices that could "directionally deliver a drug to damaged tissue," Hoffman said.

Saffran applied for a patent in 1995 and received it two years later, said Hoffman, who is with Dickstein Shapiro in Washington, D.C. It is valid, he said, until 2013. The inventor also has a lawsuit against New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, which has dominated the drug-coated stent market along with Boston Scientific.

"Dr. Saffran is an independent inventor, and his contributions to the advancement of medical technology needed to be recognized and rewarded," Hoffman said.

Saffran still is considering whether to seek an injunction against the sale of the Taxus products, Hoffman said.

Johnson & Johnson won such an injunction last year in a separate patent case involving a Medtronic spinal product, which Fridley-based Medtronic had to remove from the market.

To Larry Kurland, a partner in the intellectual property group with the St. Louis-based law firm Bryan Cave, said the award speaks volumes about the attitude of juries in the eastern district of Texas like the one that heard the case. That district, lawyers say, has a reputation for being plaintiff-friendly.

"They tend to believe if you've got a patent ... you must have done something that makes you entitled to something," Kurland said.

EchoStar Communications Corp infringed a TiVo Inc patent in building digital video recorders and must pay nearly $74 million in damages, a court that specializes in patent cases ruled on Thursday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in its decision that it partially affirmed a verdict from a federal district court in Texas.

That lower court had ruled that EchoStar's digital video recorders infringed what it called the "software" claims of a TiVo patent. But the appeals court reversed a portion of the lower court's decision which said the EchoStar devices also infringed on what it called "hardware" claims.

A U.S. patent appeals court ruled in favor of TriMed Inc on Tuesday in a suit which accused Stryker Corp of infringing its patent for an implantable device to be used for broken bones. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and sent the case back for a rehearing.

TriMed had accused Stryker, one of the biggest makers of artificial hips and knees, of selling a device for wrist fractures that infringed TriMed's patent for an implantable device that would attach to stable portions of broken bones and hold the fractured portions in place.

The district court had given a summary judgment of non-infringement. TriMed appealed. "We hold that Stryker has failed to demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact that its accused devices do not infringe," the appeals court said in its ruling.

"The grant of summary judgment of non-infringement must be reversed," the court said. "We remand for further proceedings consistent with our opinion and in view of the entire record."