Techmeme
December 8, 2012, 12:20 AM

Top News

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
U.S. patent office declares ‘the Steve Jobs patent’ entirely invalid on non-final basis  —  For the second time in less than two months, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a first Office action tentatively declaring a key Apple multitouch patent invalid.
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Exclusive: Google to replace M&A chief, launch late-stage investment fund  —  (Reuters) - Google Inc is replacing the head of its in-house mergers and acquisitions group with one of its top lawyers and is planning to create a new late-stage investment group that longtime and outgoing corporate …
Bloomberg:
Apple Joins Google in $500 Million-Plus Bid for Kodak Patents  —  Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) have joined forces to offer more than $500 million to buy Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ)'s patents out of bankruptcy, said two people with knowledge of the situation.
Douglas MacMillan / Bloomberg:
Groupon Surges on Google Takeover Speculation: Chicago Mover  —  Groupon Inc. (GRPN) surged to the highest price in three weeks on speculation that Google Inc. (GOOG) might consider buying the online coupon provider.  —  The shares advanced 23 percent to $4.69 in New York, closing at the highest price since Oct. 19.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Dropbox Hires Away Google's Guido Van Rossum, The Father Of Python  —  The original open source software “Benevolent Dictator For Life” and author of Python, Guido van Rossum, is leaving Google to join Dropbox, the startup will announce later today.  Van Rossum was a software engineer at Google since 2005 …
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Apple's Power Within  —  Whether Apple's share-price plunge is justified comes down to one question: Is the iPhone maker a hardware or a software company?  Right now, it is more the latter.  And that is why the 22% drop in the shares since their September peak creates an opportunity for investors.
Tweets: @wsj and @tradefast
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
On Legacy iPhones and Cannibalization  —  By continuing to sell legacy iPhones after the debut of the device's latest iteration, Apple, which has long catered to the higher end of the markets it plays in, is extending its reach to price-sensitive consumers.  That's a great way to spur iPhone adoption …
More: iDownloadBlog.comTweets: @waltmossberg
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Richard Stallman slams Ubuntu as spyware, prompting Canonical's Jono Bacon to call FUD  —  Richard Stallman, creator of the GNU Project and founder of the Free Software Foundation, declared on Friday that Ubuntu is spyware.  Jono Bacon, Ubuntu's Community Manager, has countered on the same …
Jennifer Van Grove / VentureBeat:
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg sells 946K shares for $26.2M gain  —  Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg sold 946,588 Facebook shares across two separate transactions on Wednesday, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Sandberg's sales netted her $26.2 million.
More: Forbes and CNET
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Google SVP Vic Gundotra was told to stop tweeting after infamous ‘two turkeys’ taunt  —  Shortly after the launch of Google+ in June last year, Google Senior VP Vic Gundotra went silent on Twitter.  The logical assumption was that he was showing his faith in the nascent G+ product …
More: BGR and Marketing Land
Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

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Richard Lawler / Engadget:
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