“Somaltus, LLC has filed a complaint against Apple today in [the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas], accusing the iPhone maker of infringing upon its 2010 patent related to complex battery technologies,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors. “The small Frisco, Texas-based firm also filed lawsuits against Asus, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba over the same patent.”
“The lawsuit claims that the iPhone 6s and any similar devices sold by Apple infringe upon U.S. Patent No. 7,657,386, titled ‘Integrated Battery Service System,’ and seeks unspecified monetary damages or, alternatively, a running royalty on sales of infringing devices from the time of judgment going forward,” Rossignol reports.
“Somaltus, LLC generally fits the description of a ‘patent troll,’ as it does not appear to provide any obvious products or services and lacks an easily identifiable online presence,” Rossignol reports. “Nevertheless, it has successfully reached out-of-court settlements with automakers like Ford and Nissan in the past in relation to the same particular patent.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Rocket docket!
I just read through the claims of the patent in suit. It’s a patent for an automobile battery testing system. Nowhere does it apply to the iPhone. Nothing in the claims can be construed to apply to a portable electronic device’s battery. The descriptions talk about putting a 150 amp load across when testing of the battery and then dropping it, then measuring the recovery. Can you picture doing such a thing to an iPhone? The claims discuss testing the battery for whether it is good or not, but the suit implies the iPhone does that internally. The application date and hence the priority dates are 2002/2003 but Apple was using such technology for testing its rechargeable batteries on its iPods and notebook computers far before that.
Apple should be suing the people they stole it from, for the crappy battery life on their phones.
Hmm. My battery life is great.
@jeffvose,did a doctor order you to buy an iPhone ? if your not satisfied you can change it or take off some of the useless apps you have installed on it.
Wow it was a joke. Even though I’ve literally had every iPhone, you millennials don’t remember old Nokia, Motorola phones that lasted 3-4 days without having to charge it. Now cue the apple cult member telling me how “my iPhone last 3 days without having to charge it”