The Keebler Elves may make some fine crackers and cookies inside their massive treehouse, but Kraft Foods is hoping to force the Kellogg-owned Keebler and Sandies to find a new way to keep their products from going stale.

Kraft filed suit in Chicago federal court Wednesday with the claim that Kellogg “improperly uses one of its patents,” Reuters reported.

The dispute stems from the resealable packaging that Kellogg uses (and customers like). Kraft claims it's too similar to its “Snack ‘n Seal” packaging.

Another food packaging design dispute is moving through the Chicago federal court system. An inventor took H.J. Heinz Co. to court last summer claiming that the company's “Dip & Squeeze” packaging too closely resembled his patented design.

Kellogg and Kraft may be competing on another front this week as well.Continue reading...

A U.S. District Judge has halted U.S. sales against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, approving Apple's request for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. against the device's sale based on Apple's claim it infringles on an iPad-related patent. As Mashable notes, "this ruling only affects Samsung's older 10-inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1. It does not affect the updated Tab 10.1 II, which was unveiled in May 2012."

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch campaign a year ago took a swipe at the iPad for shunning Flash (see below). According to IDC figures, the iPad had a 54.7% market share in Q4 2011 vs. Samsung's 5.8% share for its tablet range.Continue reading...

AB InBev trying to make Budweiser the "Coke of beers."

Apple plays offense and defense in patent fights as it rejects e-book collusion charge.

Beef Products struggles to survive "pink slime" furor.

Best Buy probes ex-CEO relationship with female subordinate.

BrightSource Energy action highlights difficulties of solar market.

Carrefour lowers prices to aid sales.

Google preserves cash and control with two-for-one stock spit. Continue reading...

Tattoos are far more socially acceptable now than they were a few decades ago and some brilliant mind at Nokia saw this as an opportunity for the company: Why not tap into the vast body-art marketplace out there with some cool technology?

The idea is that the tattoo and a user’s phone could communicate with each other so that when the person gets a call, text, email, or whatever, he or she could feel a little buzz in the tattoo.

Nokia (according to CNET) filed for a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last September to use magnetic waves to create the effect, which could also produce an invisible tattoo, apparently, if the person wasn’t interested in sticking Mom on his or her shoulder or a scene from “Where the Wild Things Are” across his or her back.Continue reading...

NPR's Planet Money team has produced a story for sister public radio program This American Life that simply must be listened to.

Titled "When Patents Attack," the segment is a searing look at the world of "patent trolling," the practice of leveraging patents to sue one's way to profits against start-ups and huge companies alike.

The show singled out one patent "troll" in particular, Intellectual Ventures. Not surprisingly, Intellectual Ventures has fired back.Continue reading...

When Christopher McDougall’s excellent Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen hit bookshelves back in 2009, the running world and general public was suddenly turned onto a new concept: running barefoot. As he set out to research the book, McDougall had set out to research and write about Mexico’s Tarahumara, a group that was rarely seen but known to be able to run hundreds of miles late into life wearing sandals or no shoes at all.

How did they do this while runners across the globe in their fancy techno-booster $150 running shoes were still dealing constantly with minor injuries of all sorts? McDougall traveled with a few American ultramarathoners to see if he could find out. One of those characters, Barefoot Ted, has been at the forefront of a movement of runners who believe the traditional running shoe should just be chucked out the window (or at least recycled somehow).

Barefoot Ted, as you may have guessed, generally goes shoeless when he’s running, but occasionally he has worn Vibram FiveFingers, which is basically a glove for your feet that helps protect it from sharp edges while running. Now, the brand is trying to protect itself from the sharp edges of competitors.Continue reading...