January 2011 featured many more patent lawsuits. In case you missed them, here’s a handy list of the most important new lawsuits and updates on old ones, including companies such as Samsung, Motorola, Elan Microelectronics and Kodak.

Read about some of the more important lawsuits involving Apple during the month of December 2011, with links to more information. Erik Cherdak is suing Apple, Nike, PhatRat, and Curtis Rock over patents relating to Apple’s Nike + iPod products. As Patently Apple describes it, the reason for the lawsuit is that “Apple and Nike more »

Apple recently sued Samsung for violating 16 trademarks and 10 patents. Now, it’s Samsung’s turn, as it has countersued Apple for allegedly violating 10 of its patents relating to “power reduction during data transmission, 3G technology for reducing errors during data transmission, and wireless data communication technology.”

Unlike us, Apple seems to be quite unhappy with Sanho Corporation, makers of one of our favorite MacBook accessories, the HyperMac Battery. They’ve filed a lawsuit against Sanho Corp. this month after notifying them several times of their alleged infringement of six MagSafe and iPod 30 pin dock connector patents. Apple says they’ve contacted Sanho Corp. three separate times to notify them of their possible patent infringement. Since the company hasn’t done anything to resolve the issue, Apple filed this lawsuit against them.

In a written email statement sent to TechCrunch after the news of Apple’s patent infringement lawsuit against HTC came out, Google has this to say: “We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it.” This is interesting simply because Google took the time to make a statement in response to the news when their company technically isn’t being sued.

And unfortunately, it’s not over the name, so it looks like we’re still stuck with that. Rather, the Chinese company Shenzhen Great Loong Brother is threatening to sue Apple for “plagiarism,” claiming they stole the iPad design from their company’s P88 tablet computer. The P88 has been on the market for six months, but as Wired suggests in their article, I wonder where they got their design cues from?

The Apple vs. Psystar lawsuit isn’t going well for the “open computer” maker, as the judge in the California lawsuit has granted all of Apple’s summary decision requests, and denied all of Pystar’s. Think of it as the Lightning Round of the judicial system; it means the judge felt there was enough evidence right now to support Apple’s claim of copyright infringement and a DMCA violation. He also supported their motion to seal.

In the 10-K annual report (PDF) Apple filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (posted yesterday), the company made note that it plans to “vigorously” defend itself in a lawsuit that Nokia filed last week. The lawsuit claimed Apple had infringed multiple cellular and Wi-Fi patents in their iPhone, which Nokia apparently owned.

The latest (and most interesting) salvo in the Apple vs. Psystar lawsuit was that Apple wants to identify several “John Does” who were behind the hacking which allows Mac OS X to be installed on generic Intel boxes. Since there’s nothing the internet loves more than a conspiracy (well, maybe one thing) there’s been a lot of speculation about who is the shadowy cadre behind the plan to break Apple’s hold on their own operating system.

John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) gives a rundown of the thinking behind that, then offers a counter theory: there’s nobody “bigger” behind Psystar at all…

Bjorn Erik Thon, consumer Ombudsman for Norway, has announced that he is taking Apple before that country’s Market Council in an attempt to force Apple to remove the FairPlay DRM from its music. This move would allow music purchased from iTunes to be played on any digital music player.

While Apple does offer some tracks for sale (in America, at least), without DRM software, the company has stated that its contracts with the major music labels require them to protect the music from illegal copying.