“Florida resident Thomas S. Ross has filed a lawsuit against Apple this week, claiming that the iPhone, iPad, and iPod infringe upon his 1992 invention of a hand-drawn ‘Electronic Reading Device’ (ERD),” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors.The court filing claims the plaintiff was ‘first to file a device so designed and aggregated,’ nearly 15 years before the first iPhone.”
“Ross applied for a utility patent to protect his invention in November 1992, but the application was declared abandoned in April 1995 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after he failed to pay the required application fees,” Rossignol reports. “He also filed to copyright his technical drawings with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2014.”
Rossignol reports, “While the plaintiff claims that he continues to experience ‘great and irreparable injury that cannot fully be compensated or measured in money,’ he has demanded a jury trial and is seeking restitution no less than $10 billion and a royalty of up to 1.5% on Apple’s worldwide sales of infringing devices.”
Read more and see Ross’ U.S. patent application illustrations in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nancy Pelosi begs to differ.
SEE ALSO:
Nancy Pelosi: The U.S. federal government invented the Apple iPhone – June 10, 2016
Apple wins patent trial brought by man who claimed to have invented iPhone – November 25, 2013
Apple in court to man who claims to have invented iPhone: No, you didn’t – November 20, 2013
Apple heads to trial against man claiming to have invented iPhone – November 12, 2013
Looks like a palm pilot to me! Why isn’t he suing them?
He forgot Apple Newton.
*titter* 🙂
The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants developed and marketed by Apple Inc. An early device in the PDA category – the Newton originated the term “personal digital assistant” – it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started developing the platform in 1987…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton
Darn! Prior art!
Talking about “Prior Art.”
Something is very fishy about Ross’ drawings that tells me that he is a fraud!
He specifies the “black and white or color LCD screens” on his 1992 invention are “LED backlit”, a technology that was not even on anyone’s horizon in 1992! In fact, in 1992, LEDs were essentially any color you wanted, if they were red or green. The white LED was not even developed until 1995, and the lumen out put was far too low to even be considered for a backlight. The first use of LEDs as an LCD screen backlight was not developed until 2003, and commercially in 2004! Yet Ross omnisciently and confidently claims his device in 1992 has LCD screens that are LED backlit! Why? How?
Easy, the drawing had to have been done sometime in these past few years since these more modern LED technologies were developed. . . this guy is a fraud and his claims are fraudulent.
Now, will a judge be able to comprehend this? 😉
The judge will if the defense points it out to him along with other impossibilities of this Bozo’s designs.
Lest we all get too excited, a reminder for the gullible:
Ideas and concepts are NOT patentable.
…Unless the USTPO is stupid enough to patent them anyway, which we’ve been discovering HAS been too often the case.
That my friend is a given.
However, the law is clear, ideas and concepts cannot be patented or protected.
“Ross applied for a utility patent to protect his invention in November 1992, but the application was declared abandoned in April 1995 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after he failed to pay the required application fees,”
End of apples argument. The guy has no case, even IF he did have a drawing of the very first iPhone submitted back in 1992.
They were using electronic reading devices on Star Treck before that.
I had no idea Florida had legalized marijuana…
No, be we cornered the market in stupidity.
Eastern District of Texas jury pool and US District Court bench has you beat.
Whoa, Apple has really screwed this guy. If Apple would have also included his idea for a 3.5 diskette drive, solar cells, typewriter keyboard, and a second numeric keyboard he would easily need 30 or 40 billion just to cover the therapy sessions.
It’s got a keyboard!
Go sue BlackBerry.
Stopped reading at “Florida man”.
Must be related to Al Gore.
It was only a matter of time before Apple got caught.
Let’s blame this on Tim Cook, also.
Would love to see an interview with the guy.
Everyone knows, Nancy Pelosi invented the iPhone.
Electronic Reading Device is something like Amazon’s Kindle. An iPhone is an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communications device.
He filed in 1992. So even if he had a patent, it’s been expired for how long?
Back then the rules were that patents were valid for 17 years after issuance. (Today, it’s 20 years after acceptance for filing. What well financed groups were doing was getting a patent filed — and thus under patent protection — then drag out the time it was being reviewed for several years by filing changes and updates and getting the USPTO reviewer to allow a modified application to keep going with the original filing date intact. Some patents were getting 25 years or more of protection that way. Changing it to 20 years after acceptance for filing was about the only step forward, IMNSHO, when they vastly changed the system several years ago.)
If we assume he had paid all the fees AND had paid all the upkeep fees (yes, there are fees required to keep the patent valid even after it is issued), then if it took a year to review, the patent would have been valid and in effect until some time in 2010.
As it is he does not have a case at all. Apple should win this on a summary judgment.
The court should sanction (fine) the lawyer who helped him file this case. If more lawyers got sanctioned over filing frivolous cases fewer cases like this would ever get filed. But alas, judges are lawyers too, and they are reluctant to smack their own kind without extreme justification.
big deal, I invented the letter “L.”
Millions of self employed engineers are now digging in their attic to desperately get some old scribbled drawings to lay some claim…….
Blackberry with that dumb keyboard. There are so many things crammed into it that it could be several devices. Yet he didn’t get a patent, he didn’t develop a product, he didn’t sell a product. So why does he deserve anything especially since the iPone has been on sale since 2007. Why did he not raise this suit at that time? I hope the courts judge will have more brains and common sense and toss this stupidity out on its ear. I don’t even know why a court of law would even be able to file such stupidity and waste the courts time in the first place.
“I don’t even know why a court of law would even be able to file such stupidity and waste the courts time in the first place.”
Cause lawyers want money and will do anything to get it whether legal or illegal, whether moral, immoral, or sanctioned by the devil.
Probably some schmuck looking for a quick buck to pay off his life-threatening debt to Maroni and Falcone XD
Again the patent laws need to change. Laws that make anyone who owns a patent needs to have a working sellable product before they can go to any court for damages because without a product that is on sale you can’t prove you lost anything. It’s easy to put stuff down on paper. It’s hard to actually bring that stuff on paper to real life. A patent fee isn’t justifiable to say you lost millions when you never did anything with that piece of paper to begin with except write on it. All those courts in Texas and Florida would be empty if they would just change the law for how patents are actually fought. Paper is not enough anymore it should be a working sellable product before a patent can be valid. Proof that you actually made the device and lost money in that investment because someone else copied your idea.
Any reason he didn’t sue you know, like 8 years ago?