“A lawyer/inventor by the name of Erik Cherdak of Maryland is suing Apple, Nike, PhatRat and a key individual by the name of Curtis Vock,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple. “Mr. Vock is shown to be both a partner at the law firm of Lathrop & Gage and an inventor on the patent that was issued to PhatRat.”

“Erik Cherdak, who has sued companies like Wal-Mart Stores, Payless, Nordstrom, Kmart and others in the past, has an interesting complaint,” Purcher reports. “Basically Cherdak is claiming that Apple and Nike have either licensed certain patents or were assigned certain patents from PhatRat to legally protect the Nike + iPod product lines, but that PhatRat deceived the USPTO during a patent examination in gaining the patent grants.”

Purcher reports, “There’s a lot of money on the line here and this case may even slow down other sporting products that Apple may be working on at present.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Edward W." for the heads up.]