Texas company sues Apple over interface designs
updated 11:05 am EDT, Fri May 14, 2010
Affected products could include broad array
Submitting through a court for the Western District of Texas, Austin-based MONKEYmedia has filed a new patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. In particular, Apple is accused of violating three patents related to MONKEYmedia's "Seamless Contraction" interface technology: one for document summary, another for RSS readers, and finally one for video players displaying multiple versions of text or AV content. MONKEYmedia is asking for an injunction, back royalties and other applicable damages and expenses.
Several components of Mac OS X are said to make use of the patents. These include DVD Player, the Front Row media browser, and the Summary Service, which creates document descriptions of adjustable length. Also cited in the case is Safari, which has an RSS reader that can scale visible article length. Any Mac with the above software pre-installed could potentially be considered infringing.
Apple faces a raft of lawsuits at present, targeting many different products for a variety of reasons. One of the most serious ones comes from HTC, which has countersued Apple claiming that the iPhone and other devices violate patents relating to power management and phone dialing interfaces. Apple's allegations against HTC have involved touchscreen technology.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2009
An idea
I know this was filed in West Texas, but what about that one court in Marshall, Texas where a bunch of the patent suits have been filed. The idea is that they can file anywhere infringement took place (i.e, anywhere a Mac or iPhone was sold).
Why not just pull all sales out of Marshall? Then no infringement takes place, and they can't file there anymore.