“New court documents reveal that both Wi-LAN and Openware have filed patent infringement lawsuits against Apple this week that allege that the iPhone and iPad with 3G violate a list of patents covering such matters as authentication systems, mail and CDMA technologies,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“According to the official complaint, ‘Apple has been and is now infringing, directly and indirectly by way of inducement and/or contributory infringement, literally and/or under the doctrine of equivalents, the Patents-in-Suit in this District and elsewhere by making, using, offering for sale, importing, and/or selling products compliant with the CDMA2000 standards (including EVDO Rev. A), HSPA standards, IEEE 802.11 standards, and/or LTE standards, that fall within the scope of at least one claim of the Patents-in-Suit,'” Purcher reports. “As a result of Apple’s infringing activities, ‘users of Apple’s Accused Products directly infringe the Patents-in-Suit.’ Although no product is listed in the complaint, it’s obvious that the complaint is focused on Apple’s iPhone and iPad with Wi-Fi and 3G.”
Full article, with explanations of the patents listed in the Wi-LAN and Openwave lawsuits, here.
Related article:
Wi-LAN sues Apple, HP, Dell and others claiming patent infringement – September 2, 2011
“products compliant with the CDMA2000 standards (including EVDO Rev. A), HSPA standards, IEEE 802.11 standards, and/or LTE standards, that fall within the scope of at least one claim of the Patents-in-Suit,”
So, these are patents included in wireless”standards”, meaning that the parties at fault should be the wireless chipmakers, like Qualcomm. Presumably, they already have a license, so these patent trolls are trying to double-dip. This is no different than Lodsys suing app developers when Apple already has a license.
As you say, if the IP in question is associated with standards and Apple is a licensee of those standards, then where is the beef? This has the smell of a nuisance lawsuit. I am not worried about it – Apple lawyers will take care of it.
It will be interesting to see Apple’s response, particularly since it bought significant wireless patents, including LTE, from the Nortel patent auction.
So far, Apple hasn’t really done all that well in court. Nokia’s win has emboldened more tech companies with wireless patents to come forward. Both companies in these suits that are suing Apple have a long list of high tech complany licencing their technologies. I wouldn’t write this one off just yet as an Apple victory.
Sorry, Nokia did not win. Nokia wanted to pay exorbitant licensing fees, far above a reasonable license fee. Apple got the licensing fee reduced dramatically by the court.