Walgreens

Two 'Walgreens' stories June 2012 - February 2013

Samsung officially unveils Samsung Wallet, a ‘Passbook-inspired’ digital ticket app

Samsung is today officially unveiling its “Samsung Wallet” mobile app solution, and it is quickly gaining attention for similarities to Apple’s iOS 6 ticket, card, and coupon solution known as Passbook. For those familiar with Apple’s app, Samsung Wallet appears to work much the same way. The app will allow users to store event tickets, membership cards, coupons, and boarding passes in one central app. From there, users will be able to present the digital passes and companies supporting the standard can scan a barcode included for each digital ticket.

Samsung has already posted a developers document for the app to outline how devs can implement support for the app using an API (via The Verge). The document also explained how the app works and noted that users will also receive real-time notifications related to their tickets, just as Apple does with Passbook.

As for the Apple influence, aside from the look and feel of the app and icon (pictured above), the Samsung Wallet app doesn’t seem to offer any additional functionality above and beyond what Passbook already offers. The company confirmed to TheVerge that the app will initially not be integrated with NFC wallet solutions (despite a new partnership with Visa), but it did confirm partners for the app’s launch include: Walgreens, Belly, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Lufthansa.
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Oracle sues Lodsys, attempts to invalidate patents

Texas-based shell company Lodsys has often been accused of being a patent troll for its various attempts to take legal action against app developers and companies that it claims uses its technologies. Most notably, the company last year attempted to get iOS and Android developers to pay royalties over in-app purchasing before Apple’s legal team eventually intervened on behalf of developers. Now, after recent threats from Lodsys to Oracle customers such as Walgreens over a web-chat technology, Oracle is suing Lodsys in an attempt to invalidate its patents. GigaOM reported:

Oracle has decided to weigh in because Lodsys “has repeatedly threatened numerous Oracle customers” such as Walgreens over the use of a web-chat feature Lodsys claims to own. Oracle is asking the court to declare that the four patents Lodsys is using to bully its customers are not new inventions. The patents, including US Patent 5,999,908 (“customer based design module”), came to prominence last year when Lodsys used them to sue Best Buy, Adidas and others.