Today’s mobile round up includes Apple’s latest patent battles against Core and Kodak, Apple and Google agreeing to meet with a senator, and the rise of fake Android antivirus apps.

Core Wireless vs. Apple

Core Wireless, the company acquired by Canada’s Mosaid Technologies (which has an existing patent licensing deal with Microsoft), filed a complaint against Apple in a Texas court accusing the iPhone maker of infringing eight patents related to wireless communications in multiple versions of its iPhone and iPad.

Core Wireless is requesting unspecified damages and future royalty payments for “each and every product sold by Apple in the future that is found to infringe,” as well as for those future Apple products that “are not colorably different” from those found to infringe.

Kodak Vs. Apple

Eastman Kodak Co. is requesting the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to ignore Apple’s appeal to restart patent litigation.  All pending patent litigation against the company was suspended when Kodak filed for bankruptcy on January 19th.

“Apple’s preferred course of action—to ask another court to decide the critical issue of what constitutes property of the estate and how that property is to be used to maximize value for creditors—should be rejected,” Kodak said Friday in court papers.

Apple “is seeking what it sees as a tactical advantage in having its ownership claims resolved outside this court,” Kodak said, adding that it “has been clear from the first day” of its bankruptcy that Apple intended to influence or interfere with the proposed sale of the digital-imaging patents.

Apple argues that they just want to protect their property.  Kodak is planning on a patent portfolio sale and Apple wants to be sure that their patents would not be included in the sale.

Apple-Google vs. The Senator

In response to U.S. Senator Charles Schumer’s request that the Federal Trade Commission investigate Apple and Google with regards to data-stealing apps, the two rivals agreed to meet with the senator to discuss the loophole on their smarphones.

“We asked them if they could find a way on their own to prevent apps from having access to private info,” Schumer said. “They were friendly and open to the idea that this ought to be changed.”

The senator stated that if the two mobile giants don’t come up with a solution to solve the issue, then he would have to ask the FTC to do something about it, if it still doesn’t work, then he’ll look at legislative approach.

Fake Android Antivirus Apps

There’s so much paranoia surrounding malware threats against the Android platform that consumers have downloaded any anitvirus app they can get their hand on.  The problem with that is not all the apps offer the best security.

According to independent testing organization AV-Test’s latest report, the best mobile security apps come from Avast, Lookout, Dr. Web, Zoner, F-Secure, Ikarus, and Kaspersky, which were able to detect 90% or more of the 618 types of malicious Android APK files for which they were tested.  While some apps were still able to detect 40-60% of the Malicious Android APK, some were totally useless.

“Using these products you don’t have to worry about your malware protection,” wrote AV-Test’s CEO Andreas Marx . He also emphasized that the security apps that tested between 65%and 90% were very good and could easily improve their detection because several apps in this category missed one or two malware families. These malware families may not be threats in “certain environments,” he wrote, which may account for the lower scores.