A Chinese court has ordered the software giant to stop producing and selling versions of its Windows OS that include Chinese fonts developed by a local software company. Microsoft’s (MSFT) use of two Chinese fonts developed by Zhongyi Electronic, a Beijing-based software company, was not covered by the licensing agreement between the two, the court found, and therefore infringed on Zhongyi’s rights. And so Microsoft must pull from the shelves Chinese language editions of Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

“By winning this case against an internationally well-known company like Microsoft, it shows that China, although still a developing country, is taking positive steps to protect intellectual property rights,” an attorney for Zhongyi Electronic told Reuters.

Microsoft, for its part, insists its agreement with Zhongyi covered its use of the fonts at issue and plans to appeal the decision. “Microsoft respects intellectual property rights,” the company said in a statement. “We use third party IPs only when we have a legitimate right to do so.”

And if Microsoft should fail in its appeal? Well, piracy is so rampant in China, a court order preventing the company from selling certain versions of Windows isn’t exactly going to hamstring Microsoft’s business. “The majority of operating systems in the market today are illegal copies, and the ones that are Zhongyi-related have an even smaller share of the market,” Analysys International analyst Edward Yu explains. “So I don’t think it will have much impact on Microsoft’s business.”

Analysts mulling over Nokia’s IP infringment suit against Apple seem to be of two minds about how the action will play out. There are those, like Neil Mawston at Strategy Analytics and Ben Wood at CCS Insight, who warn that Apple (AAPL) is on dangerous ground here at best. It’s almost impossible to build a cellphone without using Nokia’s (NOK) intellectual property, they claim. And if that’s the case with the iPhone, then Apple could end up paying Nokia hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing fees if Cupertino ends up on the losing side of this suit. (Click on text image below to see list of patents at issue.)

Some analysts, like Maynard Um of UBS, see Nokia’s action as a preemptory move against a possible infringement suit from Apple aimed at Nokia’s own multitouch handsets.

“We believe Nokia’s suit could be a pre-emptive move ahead of its new handsets launching soon that may have multi-touch capabilities for which Apple has IP,” Um wrote in a note to clients this morning. “We would not be surprised if Apple eventually files an infringement suit if Nokia’s handsets are deemed to infringe its IP and we believe Nokia would prefer any court action to be combined as prior cases have been. We expect the legal process to be drawn out & could involve US Patent Office reviews.”

The endgame here? Most likely an out-of-court settlement and cross-licensing agreements–assuming Apple’s willing. After all, Nokia is on record admitting its fondness for Apple’s technology.

Asked once about the striking similarities between a touchscreen device it was designing and Apple’s iconic handset, Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s head of multimedia devices replied, “If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.”

Check out the video:

Evidently, McCain views such rules, which would require Internet service providers to treat all Web traffic equally, as “onerous federal regulation” at best and, at worst, another one of those “government takeovers.”

“The [Obama] administration can’t resist imposing regulations on the Internet–particularly since Google Inc. and other Internet content providers were promised the imposition of such regulations as these companies seek to control what consumers see and don’t see on the Internet–despite the fact that these regulations will only serve to hurt consumers,” McCain wrote in an op ed in the Washington Times.

“The wireless industry exploded over the past 20 years, in part due to limited government regulation. Wireless carriers invested $100 billion in infrastructure and development over the past three years, which has led to faster networks, more competitors in the marketplace and lower prices in the United States compared to any other country….Regulation kills innovation. Let’s not kill the Internet.”

McCain, it should be noted, received some $894,379 in contributions from AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), Comcast (CMCSA) and other telecom industry interests over his career–all of them opposed to the Net neutrality regulations the FCC hopes to implement.

Today, the Finnish cellphone giant, which has been struggling to develop a worthy competitor to the iPhone, filed suit against Apple, claiming the popular smart phone infringes upon a number of Nokia patents.

Specifically at issue here: 10 patents covering various wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption technologies. Nokia claims that every iPhone model shipped since 2007 has violated them.

“The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for,” said Ilkka Rahnasto, vice president of legal & intellectual property at Nokia (NOK). “Apple is also expected to follow this principle. By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia’s intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.”

To that point, Nokia says it has entered into license agreements with about 40 companies for these patents. Only Apple (AAPL) has refused. The obvious endgame here, then, is to force the iPhone maker to change its mind.

“We believe that Nokia is not seeking an injunction; rather, we believe that the company has been in talks with Apple concerning a patent royalty payment for over a year,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a bulletin to clients. “With today’s announcement, it appears that the companies have not come to a resolution and Nokia is attempting to hasten the process. Nokia is likely looking to obtain a patent royalty of 1-2 percent ($6 to $12) on every iPhone sold in compensation for its IPs concerning GSM, 3G and WiFi technologies on mobile devices.”

Interesting that news of the suit comes just days after Apple announced its most successful financial quarter ever at a time when Nokia is posting nasty losses.

I’ve asked Apple for comment and will update here if I’m offered one.

Pretty damn badly.

Posting third-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street expectations this morning, AT&T (T) said it activated a record 3.2 million iPhones during the period (not surprising given Apple’s blowout quarter).

Of those, 40 percent were for customers new to the carrier. That’s quite a bit more than Wall Street expected, and this surge did much to balance continued weakness in AT&T’s wireline business (click on slide below to enlarge). In fact, if that 40 percent metric is accurate, then Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone single-handedly generated an astonishing 92 percent of AT&T’s post-paid subscriber growth.

“We delivered a terrific wireless quarter, IP data growth was strong and execution across the business continues to be solid,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in an earnings release, and indeed, that would seem to be the case.

Wireless data-services revenue spiked 34 percent. And revenue from the wireless segment overall increased 8.2 percent as profit grew 41 percent. Wireless turnover rate fell to a record low of 1.4 percent.

Meanwhile, wireline revenue fell 7.1 percent, profit 30 percent.

So in the end, AT&T posted earnings of $3.2 billion, or 54 cents a share, down from $3.23 billion, or 55 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue slipped 1.6 percent to $30.86 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected per-share earnings of 50 cents on revenue of $30.88 billion.

At $26.86, shares of AT&T are up about 3.5 percent in early morning trading.

But perhaps those restrictions were better left in place. Because on Thursday, the DOJ opened a preliminary investigation into IBM’s business practices, seeking to determine if the company has abused its monopoly position in the mainframe market. The inquiry stems from a complaint filed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association that claims IBM (IBM) has undermined sales of competing mainframe hardware products by refusing to license its mainframe operating system and certain other intellectual property.

“IBM has used its power to resurrect and create a formidable set of barriers in the mainframe market by their misuse of intellectual property,” CCIA CEO Edward J. Black, told the New York Times. “Once IBM walls are taken down by the government enforcing the law, there will be a rush of people looking to get part of this marketplace.”

Perhaps. Certainly that’s not really the case now. As the CCIA and T3 Technologies–which filed an antitrust complaint against IBM in Europe earlier this year for similar reasons–would argue, IBM has essentially left the industry with a single mainframe vendor: itself. And if that sounds like an exaggeration, consider this: A few years back, a company called Platform Solutions attempted to license IBM’s mainframe software. IBM refused and then sued Platform, accusing it of a raft of IP-related violations. Platform countersued. And then, in 2008, IBM acquired the company and promptly shut down its operations.

“For decades, IBM licensed its system software and intellectual property to other computer manufacturers,” T3 president Steven Friedman said earlier this year. “However, for no reason other than to remove all competition from the mainframe market, IBM eliminated programs to allow customers to buy its mainframe software for use on non-IBM mainframe solutions….[Now] only IBM…offers IBM- compatible mainframes and, based on IDC reports, controls over 99% of all existing IBM-compatible mainframes in use today.”

Sacconaghi believes that Dell (DELL) isn’t interested in a “transformational” acquisition, though its interest in the handset market might suggest otherwise. Rather, the company is mulling the acquisition of small- to medium-sized enterprise-related companies.

“While there has been speculation that Dell could look to acquire a handset company and we continue to believe that a consolidation play in the PC space could make sense for additional details, Dell appears focused on boosting its enterprise business by acquiring small to medium sized companies with strong margin profiles and higher levels of recurring revenues,” Sacconaghi writes.

Which companies? Software, services or storage and networking outfits, most likely, says Sacconaghi. Companies like Perot Systems (PER), Salesforce.com (CRM), Compellant (CML) and 3Com (COMS).

“We see Dell potentially looking to acquire a smaller remote infrastructure management company, or a smaller outsourcer–Perot fits the latter description, and is possible, but it is unclear that it is a willing seller, and its unique concentration (50 percent) in healthcare may be too narrow a platform for Dell’s offerings,” the analyst writes.

“…Dell’s software acquisitions to date have largely centered around systems management and we believe that similar types of companies could be acquired to further expand Dell’s capabilities. Also in software, we believe that [Salesforce.com] would be strategically consistent with Dell’s efforts to drive business at mid to large enterprises, but would be expensive ($4.8B current market cap) and would have a limited impact on revenues ($1.1B in their last FY)….

“Given that Dell’s biggest enterprise partnership is in storage, we believe the company could look to acquire additional IP for its own use. Compellent and CommVault (CVLT) could be appropriate targets. We think a networking deal is less likely, but purchasing someone such as 3COM and attempting to commoditize the networking space would not be inconsistent with Dell’s stated enterprise strategy.”

An interesting list of targets. Still, you’ve got to wonder why it doesn’t include Palm (PALM). After all, Dell really can’t afford to miss out on the handheld market completely. Can it?

We like competition, as long as they don’t rip off our IP, and if they do, we’re going to go after anybody that does….We will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we’ll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal [to make sure that doesn't happen]. I don’t know that I can be more clear than that.”

– Apple COO Tim Cook’s on the company’s iPhone intellectual property

Turns out that when Apple (AAPL) COO Tim Cook said the company would use “whatever weapons we have at our disposal” to pursue anyone who “rips off” Apple’s iPhone intellectual property, he had a very specific weapon in mind: United States Patent #7,479,949. Awarded just days before Cook made that statement, the vast 358-page patent describes the touchscreen, graphical user interface and technologies that define the iPhone user experience, including at least one that may define an element of the Palm (PALM) Pre’s as well. From the patent abstract:

A computer-implemented method for use in conjunction with a computing device with a touch screen display comprises: detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display, applying one or more heuristics to the one or more finger contacts to determine a command for the device, and processing the command. The one or more heuristics comprise: a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a one-dimensional vertical screen scrolling command, a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a two-dimensional screen translation command, and a heuristic for determining that the one or more finger contacts correspond to a command to transition from displaying a respective item in a set of items to displaying a next item in the set of items.

Also described in the patent, a gesture area separate from the iPhone touchscreen UI itself:

In some embodiments, in addition to the touch screen, the device 100 may include a touchpad (not shown) for activating or deactivating particular functions. In some embodiments, the touchpad is a touch-sensitive area of the device that, unlike the touch screen, does not display visual output. The touchpad may be a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from the touch screen 112 or an extension of the touch-sensitive surface formed by the touch screen.

A touch-sensitive area of the device that, unlike the touchscreen, does not display visual output. Hmm. That sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? Where have I heard that before… Oh, I know, in Palm’s announcement of the Pre.

Palm Pre features include the following:

…Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation”

Makes you wonder what’s going on in the bowels of Apple legal right now, doesn’t it? Palm legal, too. The company could certainly challenge the validity of the patent if it chose to.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Palm to Apple: Bring It
• Apple COO: “We Will Not Stand for Having Our IP Ripped Off”

Earlier today the blog offered nothing more than a placeholder page, but a few moments ago it went live with Icahn’s promised anecdotes on “the desultory state of corporate governance in America.”

And, specifically, Yahoo.

Which seems to figure in many of Icahn’s first few posts–though the company is never mentioned by name.

• Absurdity of Corporate Board Elections
• About CEOs–Anti Darwinian Metaphor–Survival of the Unfittest
• Absurdity of the Poison Pill
• Corporate Democracy is a Myth

Unfit CEOs. Absurd poison pills. Absurd board elections. It’s pretty clear to whom Icahn is referring, isn’t it? Presumably he’s had his site admins ban Yahoo’s IP address from the blog. I’m told comment spam can be a real nightmare.