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Engadget: As if there wasn’t enough scandal surrounding the bankruptcy of BenQ Mobile, the dead handset company has just filed its third lawsuit since July against former parent company BenQ. This time BenQ Mobile’s insolvency administrator Martin Prager wants €26 million Euro to pay executive bonuses that BenQ the parent approved, but BenQ Mobile had to pay after BenQ pulled the investment plug.

In July Prager filed two lawsuits that amounted to €80 million for account payables made by BenQ Mobile to BenQ in 2006. BenQ’s considering counterclaims against those July suits.

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NetworkWorld: A doctor who is headed to prison for defrauding government health insurance programs claims he patented the touchscreen keyboard used by the iPhone and is suing Apple in federal court.

Peter Boesen, a surgeon from Iowa, was convicted last year of seeking reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid for medical procedures that were unnecessary or not performed. He’s also tried to get money by filing patent claims against companies including Canon, LG Electronics, Kyocera and now Apple, according to news reports.

Boesen and Thomas Mann were granted a patent in 2004 that says they invented “a method of entering data on a touchscreen display” with a graphical keyboard area that automatically terminates once input is received.

Boesen, through a company called SP Technologies in Florida, sued Apple last week in U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas. The suit reportedly demands a permanent injunction against Apple, as well as damages and attorney’s fees.

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DigiTimes: Sharp filed a lawsuit alleging infringements of five of its patents on LCD-related technology by Samsung.

The complaint alleges that the following products infringe LCD-related patents that are owned by Sharp.  In the complaint, Sharp requests that the Court award compensatory damages to Sharp and prohibit the sales of the infringing products.

Sharp also requests a jury trial.

Sharp holds numerous LCD-related patents in Japan, the United States and other countries as a result of its extensive research efforts, and licenses its patents for general LCD technologies to LCD panel manufacturers. Sharp has negotiated in good faith with Samsung for an LCD patent license since 2006, but has regrettably been unable to resolve this matter through negotiations. As a result, the company was compelled to file the current lawsuit to protect its intellectual property.

The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

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Engadget: Encyclopaedia Britannica is suing TomTom, along with Magellan for alleged patent infringement.

Encyclopaedia Britannica is claiming that the companies infringed on some of its patents for a “computerized map system.”

Exactly how that applies to these particular companies and not everyone else, we’re not sure, though we’re sure we’ll be hearing more about it soon enough.

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EarthTimes: Sony is yet again facing a patent lawsuit; this time a Californian company is suing the electronics giant for alleged patent infringement in the development of its Blu-Ray technology, which is used in the company’s PlayStation 3 video game console.

Target Technology has accused Sony of “wilfully and deliberately” making use of their own technology even though it was patented by Target. Target founder Han Nee revealed that his company had filed for the patent in April 2004 and it was granted in March 2006.

The technology is widely used in most of the DVDs out in the market and is very useful in drastically reducing the production costs of the DVDs. Target is pushing for a jury trial to decide the lawsuit and in the meantime wants the court to order a “permanent injunction preventing Sony from violating its patent rights in the future, as well as damages with interest”.

Meanwhile Sony has declined to comment on the lawsuit.

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Hometheater Mag: Like two pit bulls tussling over a piece of rotten meat, CEDIA and Bose have been at war over the right to use the word “lifestyle.” The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has finally ruled that Bose may not prevent CEDIA from using the déclassé cliché.

CEDIA, the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association, has been promoting what it awkwardly calls Electronic Lifestyles products, services, and events since 1997. Bose has been using the nauseating term Lifestyle even longer, applying it to music systems since 1990. (…)

“We look forward to receiving an apology from Bose—in whatever form it might take,” said a former president of CEDIA. The English language, suffering from internal injuries and shock, was reported to be in stable condition.

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Engadget HDTV: Nano-Proprietary’s fraud lawsuit against Canon in a Texas court has been dismissed, with a jury saying no damages had been sustained, since no products have actually shipped. Nano-Proprietary holds patents to some of the technology behind SED, and licensed it to Canon in 1999. Canon then brought Toshiba in as a manufacturing partner, and Nano filed suit.

Now that all claims against Canon USA have been dropped, Canon doesn’t have to pay any additional damages to Nano beyond the price of the original license — but because the original SED patent licensing agreements with Canon have also been scrapped, rights to build the next-generation television have to be negotiated all over again.

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Physorg.com: Earlier this week, a Hitachi subsidary filed a patent infringement suit against LG Electronics and one of its subsidiaries for the improper use of Hitachi’s plasma display panel technologies 

Hitachi Plasma Patent Licensing (HPPL) had been working with Seoul-based LG Electronics and LG Electronics USA in an effort to hammer out a licensing agreement, but talks “reached an impasse – and – HPPL filed the lawsuit to resolve the dispute,” according to Hitachi.

Hitachi claims that LG’s plasma display panel products infringe on seven of Hitachi’s patents. Hitachi is seeking monetary damages and a permanent injunction, which would prohibit LG from using those seven patents and from importing or selling its plasma display panel products in the United States.

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