Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Apple, iPhone, Sued, Internet | Themes: Smartphones, Business, 3GSM
Los Angeles real estate developer Elliot Gottfurcht has filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the company infringes on his patent.
According to a report from Reuters, Gottfurcht and his two co-inventors obtained a patent last month based on their technology that displays website content on small screens. The three men claim that Apple’s iPhone - because of its ability to access the Internet - infringes on their patent, thus filing the lawsuit on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas. Gottfurcht filed the lawsuit under the name of his business, EMG Technology LLC, a one-man company based in Los Angeles with an office in Tyler. This particular Texas court has become popular due to the number of patent cases it handles, seeing fourteen filings in November alone.
EMG patent provides exclusive rights to an "apparatus and method of manipulating a region on a wireless device screen for viewing, zooming, and scrolling internet content." The patent describes how the process takes place, taking an HTML web page and converting it into an XML format that is displayed and navigable through a simplified navigation interface on a "television, web appliance, console device, handheld device, wireless device or cellular phone." This would mean that EMG could actually go after any company that manufactures the listed devices.
However Gottfurcht’s lawyer, Stanley Gibson, a partner with the Los Angeles law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, says that his client has not considered filing suit with other mobile phone manufactures such as Research in motion (Blackberry) and HTC Group (Google’s G1). "We haven’t looked at anything other than the iPhone," Gibson told Reuters. "That was the device that we looked at. Obviously it’s very popular." Gibson recently lead a successful case against Medtronic that earned a whopping $570 million for his clients, and $1.35 billion for the doctor behind the violated IP.
For the moment, Apple has declined to comment on the lawsuit, however it’s not the first suit the company has faced in regards to its popular iPhone. One of the first suits filed against the company disputed the origins of the iPhone name, as Cisco’s VOIP communications device also donned the same title. LG electronics was next in line to attack Apple, claiming that the company stole the overall look and feel from LG’s Prada phone. Quantum Research also wanted a piece of the pie, accusing Apple of using the QR patented capacitive touch-sensing technology on the iPod click-wheel. Even an Alabama woman chimed in on the attack, taking her lawsuit to federal court, claiming that the iPhone 3G couldn’t reliably connect to AT&T, dropped calls and performed slower than Apple advertised.
We’ll keep you posted on the latest developments of this litigation.
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Will someone fix this fracked up patent system already?
I'm going to break down and patent the biochemical process everyone uses to breathe... Such general and broad patents like this shouldn't exist. If someone wants to make a patent they should have an actual product/process utilizing the specific technique.
This is stupid. So many of these patents are fuzzy and really poorly conseved, let along the person that made it has no real desire or knowledge to building what they are drawing. And this guy just had an idea, a poor general one at that. This is the real American dream, to make money off of others hard work.
Patent system is a complete joke. learn to DECLINE patents already...the problem is, the people that assign the patents don't know what they are patenting exactly. They just look at the drawing and pretend they get it.
unbelievable.
Excuse me, but I just patented the English language. You all owe me $5 billion per spoken or written word.
Thank you for your cooperation.
When something like this happens and a patent is granted which clearly mimics already existing technology/methods it should be taken away. Based on this article it seems a case of someone trying to milk the system rather than a real infringement on new technology/research.
Incredible. He gets a patent last month and then claims it is violated by a device that has been out over a year... wtf???
I've patented the process by which humans process carbon based refuse, and dispose of it through long, soft, compressible tubes that absorb nutrients through porous membranes. This process also encompasses the excretion by peristalsis of the said waste through a small opening that is controlled by muscles that allow the portal to open when waste comes out, and close again after the process is completed.
Anyone want to bet they'll grant my patent?
Their patent, if concerning an already existent technology, should never have been granted. You can't patent something that already exists.
They are just trying to milk the system, by taking advantage of the poor work of the US Office of Patent (the patent examiner is supposed to do a serious research for prior existence of the technology covered by the patent ; also the patent examiner is supposed to have a good knowledge of the patent domain).
I guess the examiner was afraid of the sheer size of their patent and of the works necessary to decline it (76 claims where most patent have less than 5, etc.) so he decided to grant it. So yes i suppose Joeklein234234 can have his patent too.
Even if their patent was granted, it will not hold in court if Apple can prove the technology existed before the patent was deposited (about 18 month ago at most).
That was before the release of the Iphone I think, but basically you can browse the internet on small device since the Palm Pilot I think.
I guess they are looking for an out-of-court settlement. This is lame bullying.
So, the patent is for web browsing and the patent is only a month old... hmmm, prior art anyone.
"But, your honor, I have never seen a mobile device that can browse a website so I patented it, then I decided to ignore the 40 odd hand held devices that could browse the internet that are older than my application and decided I wanted some money so have tried to claim my 1 month old patent has been infringed by a 18 month old device".
I think its about time the US patent system is re-written with penalties for those that are challenged and found to be invalid when put into a court of law or blatantly obscure enough to be worthless.
Ok, time to patent sleeping.... I need cash.
I'm going to patent the "Patent Infringement Lawsuit Process"....
Apparently the house flipping business has dried up and this guy is looking elsewhere for easy money. After this case is over he can change his name to Gottfucht.
I'm going to write a program that takes random binary data and parses it through the dns-internets system...then it will convert it to the best damn pr0n you've ever seen.
No wait...I'll just patent it using terminology that doesn't make sense (XML isn't intended to hold layout/page structure, just data)...and then if someone ever comes up with something even close...I'll sue.
This is some of the funniest shit I have seen in quite some time. Easy money maker for people who aren't willing to work hard for their money. Just do a quick search to see if a well known turn, process, technique, etc, and see if it is taken. If not, file for a patent immediately and wait for someone to make that technology or whatever it is and then sue 'em.
My idea, patent the idea of teleportation and then sit on my ass for a couple of years then the moment someone comes out with a technology close to the idea of teleportation, sue 'em even though you never made any attempt to make it possible in the first place.
LoL @ Joeklein234234. It would have more sense if the patent was active 18 months ago and the iPhone is released 1 month ago. On the other hand, I just can't believe that the patent system is working in such a "reversed" way. Now if I'm going to design something I'll have to look through the zillions of present patents similar to my work just to make sure no one sues the heck out of me. Brilliantly designed patent system...
Oh come on, according to the patent description above this guy could sue anyone with a 'portable' device that shows ANY web content using XML in the conversion process. If I invent a 'device' for 'interactively sending commands to visually interact with a computer or other electronic device' (a MOUSE for example) I'd be richer than Billy G himself. In fact, I'm filing the patent now, given how lame the NA patent system is I'd probably be granted it, and given the state of US legislation I'd probably win my first lawsuit without having to do more than cough.
Shucks, someone put the whole planet in an asylum already.
By funny if Apple can sue the patent office for stupidity.
I'm going to break down and patent the biochemical process everyone uses to breathe... Such general and broad patents like this shouldn't exist. If someone wants to make a patent they should have an actual product/process utilizing the specific technique.
I'm far from an expert on the us patent system, but shouldn't there be something like prior art in the patent system? so that the only thing apple has to prove is, that an ancient nokia phone did web browsing before the patent was filed, and thus the patent isn't valid?
This is truly sad how long have cell phones & other devices been able to browse the internet to funny. I have a 4 year Palm pilot that can browse the internet is it infringing on their patent as well I would think it is not as it clearly came out before the patent was granted oh yeah what about my PSP it can browse as well or my Nokia cell phone I have had it for 2 years now it clearly is infringing as well. This is a joke its got to be my frakin god this is lame they need to pull this patent now there must have been a big mistake or this could turn out to be another rambus all over again.