“A California base company by the name of Ameranth has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“Ameranth’s ‘award winning’ inventions enable generation and synchronization of menus, event tickets, and other products across fixed, wireless and/or internet platforms,” Purcher reports. “Ameranth is suing Apple on four counts related to the Passbook Ticketing System that is integrated with iPhone 5 and other iPhone and iPod Touch devices that are running Apple’s iOS-6 software, and linked to/with Apple’s iCloud, the ‘Apple Notification Service,’ and Apple’s Safari browser.”
Purcher reports, “One of Ameranth’s patents were quoted as prior art in an iPhone patent that listed Bas Ording and the late Steve Jobs as inventors.”
Much more in the full article here.
“Award winning” patents? BS. What body gives awards to patent trolls for dubious software patents?
IMO all software patents should be abolished. Software should be protected by copyright (so direct code-theft can be litigated), but patenting general ideas in software is absurd and destructive.
If this had been going on in the ’80s, things like the Save button, the Print button, the ability to shut a a computer down by clicking on a button, etc, would all be patented and owned by someone.
And yes, Apple is one of the worst offenders in the patent nuclear war that’s destroying the tech industry.
doesn’t look destroyed to me.
Apple is just responding to how it was treated by the patent system. Remember that little OS that came out after the Mac, Windows? Microsoft didn’t exactly play fair with that now, did it? And Apple lost its shorts over a trade dress/copyright claim. If Apple had patented how a mouse works to control a computer operating system, Windows may never have existed and Microsoft would just be a much smaller company cranking out versions of Office.
dude, it didn’t say award winning patents, it said “‘award winning’ inventions”
Crawl back under…
I guess that’s slightly different than having Ward Cleaver wear patent leather shoes.
BTW- I own the patent on the Print button. Pay me now.
I own he patent on Pay Me Now, so pay me now.
“the patent nuclear war that’s destroying the tech industry” is a load of bullshit. All the litigants are making money hand over fist. Quit listening to pundits.
One day the Pundits will roast In Hell. Mark my words: falsehoods in the service of one’s own wallet, and little else, stain the soul and reputation, and only the truly demented will testify on your behalf on the day of redemption.
Play by the sword and die by the sword! Apple Inc. is about to get rocked like it never has before. Stealing, Copying, sense of entitlement from Apple senior management, taking on your top suppliers, starting a war with Google, poorly executed OS6 and iPhone 5 and you have a recipe for disaster in 2013.
Happened to MSFT and now will happen to Apple!
‘Poorly executed OS6 and iPhone 5seriously? In which parallel universe?
Certainly not in the one I’m living in.
The only thing that’s poorly executed is the satellite mapping in Maps. I’m going on holiday this weekend, and I happened to tap on the address of the people I’m going to stay with, while copying the postcode to use in CoPilot. It dropped a pin right by their farm, in a remote part of South Devon. I tried to find it in Google Maps; Google wouldn’t even do a search, no matter what parameters I used, post code, name, location. Apple 1, Google 0.
Corrections:
“taking on your top suppliers” (should say) Defending your designs and patents from top supplies who tries to steal them without paying for them.
“starting a war with Google” ( should read) Rightfully starting thermonuclear war on the company whose CEO sat on Apple’s board during iPhone development and never mentioned that he was stealing the ideas of that product and using the intel in those discussions to build his own competing product.
Your stupid is showing.
Hi, MacFreek, or whoever you are this week. Please, please, please check you “stupid” at the door. There’s no market for it here.
blahblahblah says anonymous coward ‘Gary J.’
More of the same old Samsung paid anti-Apple FUDing and trolling. Another fake name, another moronic troll rant.
Stand in line sucker. Apple is a deep pocket now for all the moochers and bounty hunters.
Apple needs to make a few examples of some of these companies. Start with a public announcement that they are earmarking $100M for the prosecution of lawsuits for malicious prosecution.
“Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort, while like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include (1) intentionally (and maliciously) instituting and pursuing (or causing to be instituted or pursued) a legal action (civil or criminal) that is (2) brought without probable cause and (3) dismissed in favor of the victim of the malicious prosecution. In some jurisdictions, the term “malicious prosecution” denotes the wrongful initiation of criminal proceedings, while the term “malicious use of process” denotes the wrongful initiation of civil proceedings.”
Pick 3 or 4 of these patent trolls and sue them into oblivion – end up owning them and liquidating their assets. Then see how many would be muggers want to step up to the plate.
Looser pays all legal fees, would really be a deterent.
Since day one, Apple has been the deep pocket for an entire industry who needed ideas to steal.
Wow. They actually make something (restaurant and casino systems). This could be a first.
Everyone wants a piece of the Apple pie
As of now, there are only 11 apps that support passbook. Hope there will be more soon, or this may go the way of Ping.