Patent holder takes aim at Apple for iPhone's ability to search & receive ads
The lawsuit was filed this week by H-W Technology LC, the owner of U.S. Patent No. 7,525,955, entitled "Internet Protocol (IP) Phone with Search and Advertising Capability." The invention was filed in 2004, and granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in April of 2009.
The patent from H-W Technology describes a handset that is "able to converge voice and data within a single terminal." The advertising-related invention describes the ability of users to "receive information and offers from merchants and to complete a transaction with one of said merchants without having to generate a voice call."
Apple is included in the lawsuit alongside a long list of other technology companies, ranging from partners to rivals. Other defendants include Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Amazon, Research in Motion, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony and Verizon. In all, 32 defendants are named in the lawsuit.
The suit accuses Apple of infringing on the '955 patent by creating "a multi-convergence device having a domain specific application" allowing users to make transactions relying on a data connection alone. Specifically cited in the suit is the iPhone.
H-W Technology seeks a permanent injunction preventing Apple and the other defendants from selling products it believes to be infringing upon the '955 patent. The complaint dated March 30 was filed in a U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.
15 Comments
I love how the list of defendants is not even alphabetized, is there any reason for this ?
Good lord
Very interesting analysis at http://www.applepatent.com/2011/04/h...complaint.html. If I had some original idea and patented it I'd be diligent in guarding it. I don't have any opinion on this issue since I don't understand enough of the intricacies. If there is some infringement it's good to get it before the courts (or jury as in this case). If there's not then it's good for everybody to get beyond. It's business, yo.
Are lawsuits such as this part of the reason why perhaps that functions such as search are not included in the first place? Or am I reaching too far and the real reason is you don't have an infinite number of monkeys generating an infinite number of lines of code at no cost to bring a product to market?
not being very familiar with this at a glance it does seem to be like so many others - where there is some obscure idea that if you squint just right resembles what someone else is doing.
My opinion with software is that you should have to show identical lines of code or algorithms or maybe visual elements that are exactly the same for there to be infringement. Oh, wait, what's that, your patent is on a general concept of how something might possibly be done and you are suing because someone else independently arrived at actual implementation of how to achieve something roughly similar to your idea, well why didn't you say so.
Whenever I read about one of these silly patent infringement claims, I wonder who is paying for the court costs? Is the party that loses a civil case required to pay all the cost incurred by the court? At the very least, when a plaintiff loses, the plaintiff should be required to pay all the costs incurred by the court. Perhaps this is how it works. I don't know, but this should be how it works, and that sill leaves the problem of the public having to pay the bill when the defendant loses.
I read the blog referenced in the prior post. It makes no sense to me. There just isn't anything there that comes within a light year of being something that my common sense tells me should be patentable. The patent seems to hinge on the idea of using a phone to do something that would not be doable in an ordinary phone that has only a voice connection, not a data connection. So if this is patentable, it seems that anything that any ordinary computer is capable of doing, via a network connection, and that you can describe using the appropriate language, is patentable when it is done via a mobile phone. This just makes not sense at all to me, and if this is what it comes down to, I certainly hope that the courts have sense enough to throw it out. And if it does get thrown out, or if the defendants prevail after going to court, then I hope that the plaintiffs are required to pay all the cost and even additional penalties. Otherwise, there is no end to this sort of thing.