Articles Tagged with iPhone

On December 11, a federal jury in Delaware found that Apple’s iPhone violates three patents held by MobileMedia Ideas LLC (“MMI”), a Maryland company. The company first filed the patent infringement lawsuit on March 31, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, where it was assigned to Judge Sue Robinson.

In its complaint, MMI alleged that Apple’s manufacture and sale of the iPhone product violated 14 patents owned by MMI. After extensive discovery and pretrial procedures, the case went to a jury trial. The jury returned a verdict for MMI, finding that Apple directly infringed on three of the patents at issue:

• U.S. Patent No. 6,070,068: “Communication terminal device and method for controlling a connecting state of a call into a desired connection state upon a predetermined operation by a user” (originally assigned to Sony)
• U.S. Patent No. 6,253,075: “Method and apparatus for incoming call rejection” (originally assigned to Nokia)
• U.S. Patent No. 6,427,078: “Device for personal communications, data collection and data processing, and a circuit card” (originally assigned to Nokia)

MMI has filed lawsuits against other technology companies as well, including Research In Motion (RIM) and HTC Corporation, but they have not yet been resolved.

Yesterday, December 6, a Canadian company filed two lawsuits against Apple, alleging that the Cupertino, California, company infringed on several of its patents. One lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, names both Wi-LAN (the Canadian corporation) and Wi-LAN USA (its subsidiary) as the plaintiffs. The other lawsuit was filed on behalf of only the Canadian corporation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Both lawsuits target Apple products compliant with the Third Generation Partnership Project – Long Term Evolution (“3GPP LTE”) standard, specifically the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and iPad (3rd Generation).

The Texas lawsuit alleges infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,381,211, entitled “Processing data transmitted and received over a wireless link connecting a central terminal and a subscriber terminal of a wireless telecommunications system” and issued in 2002. Wi-LAN seeks damages and an injunction against Apple for manufacturing and selling 3GPP-complaint products that allegedly infringe on its patented system.

The lawsuit filed in Florida alleges infringement on U.S. Patent No. 8,315,640, entitled “Methods and systems for transmission of multiple modulated signals over wireless networks.” It also alleges that Apple’s products infringe on U.S. Patent No. 8,311,040, entitled “Packing source data packets into transporting packets with fragmentation.” Both patents were filed in 2010 and issued only last month, November 2012.

Complaint in Wi-LAN USA, Inc. v. Apple Inc. (S.D. Fla.)

Apple acquired partial European trademark rights to the word “lightning” from motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson’s intellectual property unit, H-D Michigan, LLC, according to public filings with the European Union’s trademark and design unit (see below), and a blog post by Patently Apple.

Apple uses the term Lightning to describe its proprietary connection interface for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and iTouch devices that were introduced starting in September 2012.

The trademark update, however, currently applies only in the EU, although it seems likely that Apple and H-D also negotiated for the transfer of certain U.S. trademark rights to the word mark.

The H-D unit filed a trademark registration on January 1, 1995, with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “motorcycles and structural parts therefore,” and was awarded trademark registration by the USPTO for the word mark nearly 2.5 years later on June 3, 1997.

A consumer Apple iPhone class-action antitrust lawsuit (read it below) accuses the Cupertino, California, company of conspiring to monopolize early iPhone purchasers’ voice and data plans by locking them into exclusivity contracts with AT&T Mobility, in violation of federal antitrust law.

The proposed class of plaintiffs includes consumers who bought iPhones between October 19, 2008, and February 3, 2011. This corresponds to the period of time when Apple sold three versions of the company’s iPhone: the original, 3G, and 3Gs models.

The plaintiffs are asking for a permanent injunction prohibiting Apple from selling locked iPhones that can be be used only with AT&T Mobility SIM cards, unless consumers get adequate disclosure before their purchase, and an order requiring Apple to give an unlock code to any iPhone customer who wants one.

Plaintiffs Zack Ward and Thomas Buchar also seek an unspecified amount of treble damages against Apple under federal law, in addition to attorneys fees. Apple is the sole defendant in the lawsuit; neither AT&T Mobility, nor any related business units at the telecom was named a party.

The suit alleges that Ward and Buchard each wanted to switch their iPhone plans from AT&T to a different, competing telecom provider. Buchar also contends that by locking iPhone customers’ SIM cards when traveling outside the U.S., he was unable “to switch his iPhone service to a local voice and data service provider while roaming.”

The lawsuit chastises AT&T for unlocking SIM cards on other phones it sells, like Blackberry and Samsung devices, and claims that “[t]here is but one exception: the iPhone,” citing a five-year exclusivity agreement between Apple and AT&T Mobility.

This case has a quite a few hurdles to overcome, however.

STMicroelectronics, a Swiss maker of Micro-Electric-Mechanical Systems (‘MEMS’) for accelerometers and gyroscopes in consumer products like iPads and iPhones filed a patent infringement lawsuit today against competitor InvenSense, Inc.

ST’s lawsuit alleges that Sunnyvale, California-based InvenSense is infringing nine (9) of the company’s patents being used in consumer electronic devices like gyroscopes and a “free-fall detection and free-fall protection system for portable electronics,” in addition to other MEMS patents.

Anyone who has ever searched the uspto.gov website has surely thought that the private sector could offer a better system.  Google agreed, and nearly a year ago struck a deal with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to make all of the data on patents and trademarks available not only to their own search engine, but in bulk format to other companies so that they could take the data and work with it.

We’ve been impressed with the work of Robb Shector on OregonLaws.org and WebLaws.org. Now, he’s made excellent use of the trademark data to create Quisitive, an iPhone app for searching trademarks in a new and very innovative way.

Twice, I’ve reviewed PocketJustice by our friends at Oyez: a great app for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices for researching US Supreme Court Cases. Despite the strengths of PocketJustice, it lacked an easy way to follow current Supreme Court developments. It seems our friends at Oyez were aware of that, and have decided to release another app called OyezToday. This app for the iPhone and iPod touch is completely free through a sponsorship from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Much of the app works just like PocketJustice in that it shares the same features: bios of Supreme Court Judges, an archive of cases, and oral arguments with transcripts that follow along with playback. Unlike PocketJustice, however, this app is limited to much more current cases.

It’s election day and all of us here at Justia hope you get out and vote! Given that we’ll have a new Congress at the beginning of the year, we’d like to point you to some iPhone apps you can download to keep informed on what’s going on in the U.S. Senate and House.   Note: All of these apps are FREE.

C-Span Radio – Listen to Congressional hearings along with audio streams of public affairs programming from C-SPAN Radio, C-SPAN and C-SPAN2.

Sometimes people mistake Justia’s mission, “To advance the availability of legal resources for the benefit of society,” as being only about advancing the availability of legal resources for lawyers, but society is much larger then the legal community. This week’s App of the week is free for the iPhone and iPad from our friends at Nolo, and it’s geared at making the often confusing landscape of legal terms easier to understand for everyone.

I am not a lawyer myself, nor have I gone to law school.  I came to Justia as a programmer.  While I have learned much about the law since I started working here in 2006, I still find myself constantly coming up against legal terms that I don’t know.  There are a few places I turn to find out what those words and phrases mean discreetly so when the lawyers in my midst say them I can pretend I knew what it was all along, and one of the best sources I’ve found is Nolo’s Plain English Legal Dictionary available for free at nolo.com/dictionary.

Do you like free, quick access to case law and codes? Of course you do. What’s not to like?

With an iPad or iPhone, you can download the free Fastcase app to research state and federal court opinions, as well as find state and federal codes.

That’s right, it costs you and your firm nothing. Nada. Rien. Zilch. You pay nothing to get it, and nothing to use it. No other legal app out there gives lawyers and legal professionals this much portable legal research, convenience, and speed for virtually nothing.