Apple, Dell sued in Texas

Apple, along with Acer, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, are faced with a new patent violation suit in the "plaintiff-friendly" Eastern District of Texas, a new report says. The suit is being brought by Saxon Innovations (site under construction), an intellectual property licensing company. Saxon claims that the defendants violated its "Wireless Communications Privacy Method and System" patent, number 5,592,555; patent 5,502,689, relating to a "clock generation capable of shutdown mode;" and patents 5,530,597 and 5,235,635, connected to "processor interrupt masks" and "keypad activity based activation."

In the face of increasing litigation of this type, companies including HP, Google, Ericsson and Cisco have recently formed the non-profit organization Allied Security Trust. The aim of the alliance is to buy and pool technology patents in a central shared repository, providing future protection for the companies involved when they launch new products. Apple has yet to express interest in joining.

by MacNN Staff