Apple Sued by Patent Troll for Allegedly Violating up to Ten Patents with the iPhone
August 11, 2008 by Erik MacKinnon
Apple – the makers of our beloved iPhone – along with Palm and Blackberry maker Research in Motion were sued late last month in the Eastern District of Virginia court. The plaintiff, WiAV Solutions, alleges that Apple et al are in violation of at least 10 patents related to GSM mobile communication technology and AMR voice compression technology.
WiAV is no stranger to recklessly suing companies in the hopes of winning injunctions and damages. A company with no headquarters, no website and no products outside of patent lawsuits, WiAV has turned up on the radar before for similar suits. A quick Google search shows that WiAV has previously threatened patent enforcement litigation on Texas-based American Microsystems (see update below), a manufacturer of handheld wireless barcode scanners.
Click here to view the 23 page PDF legal filing (Thanks to Engadget Mobile) if you’re very bored or care for some reason. Essentially WiAV is suing the three companies for a variety of alleged infractions, including violating patents on power management, voice accommodation over music, and detecting the changes between voice and silence.
Unsurprisingly, WiAV is looking for a permanent injunction on the sale of any device that contains any of the allegedly infringed patents, as well as damages – and of course nice healthy “licensing fees”. What’s even stranger is that WiAV actually only owns two of the ten patents – the rest they licensed (exclusively) from Mindspeed Technologies. This means that Mindspeed will have to join the suit at some point to continue.
Not much to see here, folks… I can’t see the juggernauts losing to the patent troll on this one. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.
Update: As mentioned by Teresa Stone of American Microsystems (Thanks Teresa!) in the comments – American Microsystems was in fact not sued by WiAV. They sued WiAV first, which prompted an early settlement.
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As a correction to your recent posting entitled “Apple Sued by Patent Troll for Allegedly Violating up to Ten Patents with iPhone”, American Microsystems, Ltd. was not sued by WiAV. Instead we sued them, which is what prompted an early settlement for a whole lot less than what it is probably going to cost Apple.
Hey there Teresa,
Looks like we’ve got an insider into the deal with patents. Thanks for the correction, I’m guessing you work(ed) there for American Microsystems? Hopefully we get that correction made. Again thanks!