Project Ara

Google shocked us all on Wednesday when it announced that it had sold Motorola to Lenovo less than two years after it was acquired, but the search giant is holding onto certain parts of the company.

Not only will it keep the vast majority of Motorola’s massive patent portfolio, but it’s also maintaing a firm grip on the Advanced Technology and Projects group, which is responsible for the Project Ara modular phone.

Samsung has agreed a patent licensing deal with Ericsson to end an ongoing legal dispute that began back in 2012. The South Korean company will pay royalty costs and an initial licensing fee to gain access to numerous Ericsson patents covering LTE, UMTS, and GSM network standards.

Google has lost its battle against a patent troll after a Texas court found Android guilty of infringing a push notification patent. SimpleAir — which has also targeted Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and other technology giants — is now seeking $125 million in damages.

Remember that recent Samsung patent that detailed a new smartphone, believed to be a future Galaxy Note, with a wraparound display? Well designer Jermaine Smit has turned Samsung’s illustrations into a gorgeous Galaxy Note 4 concept that looks so good it almost guarantees the real thing will be a disappointment.

Samsung’s already launched its first smartphone with a curved glass display, but that’s just a little taster of things to come from the South Korean consumer electronics giant. In fact, the Galaxy Round actually looks pretty boring when you compare it to the smartphone depicted in these Samsung patents, which features a wraparound display that extends around the edges of the device.