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Apple is accused in lawsuit of infringing on Intertrust patents

Intertrust Technologies Corp.'s lawsuit against Apple alleges that the iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices violated Intertrust's patents. Above, an Apple store in Beijing on March 12. (Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg / March 12, 2013) Apple is famous (or notorious, depending on your point of view) for going it alone on some technologies rather than joining the rest of the tech crowd. For example, its iTunes store sold downloadable songs for years in a copy-protected format that only Apple's devices could play, and even today it eschews the de facto industry standard for downloadable tracks (MP3) in favor of a far more obscure one (AAC). And although its Apple TV devices can stream video from several sites, they can download them only from iTunes. One way the company has enforced such exclusivity is through the proprietary technology it uses to guard against piracy. On Wednesday, however, privately held Intertrust Technologies Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., sued Apple, ac

How Apple and Amazon are Growing but Best Buy, J.C. Penney, and K-Mart are not

Chinese customers at the newly inaugurated Apple Store in Wangfujing shopping district on Oct. 20 in Beijing, China. Retail can be an industry in decline-but limited to traditional retailers. For firms that have become successful doing something different, opening a chain of stores brings countless clients as well as the profits which are using them. This paradox in the retail companies are evident in a few of the largest names in the mall. Traditional retailers like Biggest score, J.C. Penney, Sears, and Kmart are struggling to reverse losses, turn themselves around and present shoppers new why you should think they're relevant. The recently announced merger of Office Max and Office Depot is the latest illustration of a retail glut which has already sunk Borders, CompUSA, Circuit City, and many others. Yet Apple, a technology company and newcomer for the retail scene, operates a network of greater than 200 U.S. stores who have developed a new paradigm for brick-and-mortar suc