“Previously unknown firm Touchscreen Gestures has sued Apple, HTC, RIM, and Samsung [in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division] this week for allegedly violating four patents for some of the simplest elements of touchscreen input,” Electronista reports.
“iOS devices, newer BlackBerrys, and Android devices allegedly copy methods for single taps, double taps, dragging, and scrolling,” Electronista reports. “The patents had been transferred at some point from notebook trackpad developer Sentelic, although whether they were bought or handed over with hopes of a payout aren’t clear.”
Read more in the full article here.
Jeff John Roberts reports for paidContent, “CNET last year spoke poorly of the firm in reviewing a laptop: ‘The touch pad is equally terrible, which is to be expected: it’s a Sentelic. Erratic behaviour and terrible software is the hallmark of a Sentelic pad.'”
“It’s unclear how the patents made their way from Sentelic to the Texas court room,” Roberts reports. “The most likely explanation is that they were purchased by one of a growing number of professional ‘patent trolls’ — firms that don’t make anything but amass patents in order to make a business of suing deep-pocketed companies like Apple.”
Roberts reports, “The trolls typically pick a plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction like East Texas where rural juries have frequently issued verdicts in the tens of millions of dollars.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Trolltastic.
Ask not for whom the bell trolls; it trolls for thee.
Ask not who your patents can troll for you, but who you can troll for your patents. 😉
Eventually patent trolling is going to come to a head, and a big case is going to have to set precedent for new laws. One should not be able to form a company for the sole purpose of acquiring patents and suing based on them; these “patent lottery” cases should get reveiwed and tossed.
Why should one not be able to form a company to acquire patents and license IP?
I don’t believe in the patent system at all anymore. I think it has run its course and needs to be buried with the dinosaurs but I’m genuinely interested in what other people think.
If the patent system stands then it seems like IP licensing companies should be allowed to exist even though I fully hate both patents and IP licensing companies.
The answer is very simple. Let the law stipulate that a plaintiff must currently be producing a product that uses the patent in order to establish damages. Zero products = Zero damages = Zero award dollars = Zero frivolous patent lawsuits.
What’s that catchy phrase everyone around the world has been saying for decades… ONLY IN AMERICA?
yeah.
I think Apple shareholders should file a big ass suit against each of these patent trolls. Their bogus lawsuits reduce the value of the company thereby harming the shareholders. I guess if we all chipped in $1 per share we could get the litgated into another world.
… $200 to back my wife’s shares. Have your team of lawyers send me the brief … a few dozen like me and we could get started.
I’d love to see Apple just crush one of these patent trolls.
“The trolls typically pick a plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction like East Texas where rural juries have frequently issued verdicts in the tens of millions of dollars.”
This is so ridiculous it’s like predicting the direction the sun will rise. Instead of the engaging in the absurd, anti-competitive nonsense of saving Amazon from of the Apple/Publishing Industry Conspiracy, maybe the DoJ would be put to better use investigating the jurisdiction of East Texas.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
And, in the case of East Texas, it’s “patently” obvious.