“Apple is facing the first of what may be many lawsuits claiming infringement of patents pertaining to technology in its new iPhone,” Daniel Del’Re reports for TheStreet.com.
“SP Technologies of St. Petersburg, Fla., is calling for Apple to pay royalties for the ‘willful and deliberate’ infringement of a patent it says Apple used illegally for the iPhone’s keyboard,” Del’Re reports.
“If a judge or jury rules that a defendant willfully used someone else’s intellectual property, then the defendant may have to pay punitive damages equal to three times the economic loss that the plaintiff suffered,” Del’Re reports. “SP filed the suit in a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, which is considered to be sympathetic to plaintiffs in patent infringement cases.”
Del’Re reports, “Apple is a big target for patent suits given the technical complexity of its products and its deep financial reserves. Plaintiffs in cases like this often hope that the threat of an injunction and treble damages will compel a defendant to settle without a trial.”
More details in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bob R.” for the heads up.]
Doesn’t Apple have patents for everything on the iPhone?
It sounds more like profit seekers than someone with an actual rights violation
MDN, this is from THE STREET. They are obviously one of the most biased, anti-apple, low-brow journalistic “papers” on the internet. Come on, there is no threat to Apple here.
I suppose it is to be expected. I cannot imagine patents being issued where an existing patent is already established and is on the market.
A precedent was set by Linux when some millionaire treid to patent it for himself because Mr. torvald had not done so, the Patent Office asked Mr Torvald to patent Linux and then protect it by demanding payment for it. He recieved voluntary payments and was granted the patent in retrospect even though he had not applied for it in the first place.
It is time the American way of conducting business was scrutinised, disected and recompiled to bring it into this century just as Europe is in the process of doing.
extortionists!!!
The Street.com is the worst when it comes to anti-Apple news. I had a nice email exchange with none other than Scott Moritz. You can read it at this link…
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/forum/
How do you patent a keyboard? It’s… keys. On a touchscreen. Isn’t a patent supposed to be novel somehow?
Next up: Little-known company sues Apple over use of a mouse.
The Newton had both a touch sensitive screen and a screen based keyboard back in 1993… Absolutely _ZERO_ merit to this one.
Hano
Click on “More on Troy Wolverton, the Street, and Apple Scandal”
Interesting…
I’ve just done a Google search, a Yellow Pages search [of St Petersburg, Fla], a St Petersburg Chamber of Commerce search and a Wikipedia search and none can find a company from St Petersburg, Florida called SP Technologies. The only reference I can find online is in reference to this very ‘lawsuit’.
I’m not saying they don’t exist, I’m just saying that for a tech company to not have an online presence somewhere is unusual in this day and age.
Sounds to me like Apple will have some fun with these idiots. After all, patents are patents and dumb-dumbs are dumb-dumbs!
Charlie
You do realize SP Tech is not really a technology company, don’t you? They don’t actually create anything either. They’re empty suits who have studied Apple’s patents and think that by barking really loud, they’ll get Apple to cave.
Apple will pursue this aggressively because it could the first of a long string of suits if Apple doesn’t whomp on them at the get-go.
Oh, how much I love the idiots working at TheStreet.com. They can always make me laugh.
One day Apple’s gonna sue them to dirt for altering the stock based on information. I can’t wait.
MW: twenty
Hopefully that means days ;-/
You know, I once drew pictures of a keyboard as well. I new I should have patented it!
Can you imagine how much cheaper these products would be if Apple didn’t need to have an Army of lawyers the size of Canada’s military?
Anyone read the patent?
The fact that anyone was granted a patent for this “invention” is just…incredibly pathetic.
The patent basically says, “Touch screen computers use on-screen software keyboards. For example, here’s just such a keyboard. But they’re often done as controls that the user can move, minimize, resize, and there are times that isn’t good–so we’ll take that keyboard and pull off the minimize and maximize buttons, and the bar and corners that can be used to resize and move it, and hey, now we’ve got an invention!”
Since when is removing functionality from someone else’s invention a new invention? That’s like saying, hey, you invented a ten speed bike! I’ll invent a nine speed one!
i guess this is another trap that comes from mafiasoft,and that companies should know that they´re putting their jobs in hell…
why on earth is this popping up now? the iPhone’s been on the market for over a month now, and people knew about it (and the keyboard) for 6 months before then. in my opinion there should be some sort of time limit in which you have to file a suit.
I should mention to the casual reader that the statements of crabapple, above, in regards to a hypothetical “Linux patent”, are not true. There is a trademark on Linux, but patents and trademarks are not similar in any way.
MDN,
I’m surprised you didn’t label this “Think before you click”
TheStreet.com = hitmongering whores who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them in the ass.
The entire US legal system was created by corrupt scum lawyers, just like this Edwards bozo, who running for president now.
I patented masturbation. I’m gonna be rich from Windows users who need something to do when they keep having to reboot.
“If a judge or jury rules that a defendant willfully used someone else’s intellectual property, then the defendant may have to pay punitive damages equal to three times the economic loss that the plaintiff suffered,”
Which isn’t much since the iPhone just appeared on the scene.
“Apple is a big target for patent suits given the technical complexity of its products and its deep financial reserves. Plaintiffs in cases like this often hope that the threat of an injunction and treble damages will compel a defendant to settle without a trial.”
Apple has pretty deep pockets, I think it’s more like the other side will settle for a morsle than fight for tens of years over this.
Quad Core, I new I should have patented it!
Did you also know how to spell knew?
Or is it too new to patent?
“”SP filed the suit in a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas, which is considered to be sympathetic to plaintiffs in patent infringement cases.””
there are times, a lot times in fact, that i think we would be better off without the lone star (millions of nuts) state.
did you know they have a state pledge? school kids have to say it every morning….. what a fricking bunch of nutters.
anyway, just another sign of the broken IP system. sad but true.
“I patented masturbation. I’m gonna be rich from Windows users who need something to do when they keep having to reboot.”
Windows Guys spend their time screwing the beautiful women they can get with their real world salaries.
It’s Mac fanboys in their mummies basements jerking off over their new iProduct that you’ll get rich from.