Apple sued over iPhone keyboard
The first iPhone lawsuit might have been somewhat laughable, but the second one may be a little more serious.
An outfit called SP Technologies has sued Apple over the touch-screen keyboard at the heart of the iPhone, claiming Apple is infringing on a patent held by SP Technologies for a similar keyboard. AppleInsider dug up the SP patent filing from 2000, which claims the company developed a "method of providing a user interface for receiving information from a user using a user immutable graphical keyboard linked to an input area."
Apple was sued last week by a company claiming a patent on touch-screen keyboards.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)Patent suits, of course, are a dime a dozen, and Apple's not exactly the first company to ever use a touch-screen style input method. But this one will probably require more effort to defend than the iPhone battery suit filed a few weeks ago. The suit was filed Thursday in Tyler, Texas, which has become the destination of choice for patent suits these days.
An Apple representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment, but it's unlikely Apple would have much to say at this stage.
Correct me if I'm wrong: for a patent suit to be material, doesn't the patent holder have to prove that the violator reduced or impinged upon profits that could have belonged to the patent holder? We're talking potentialities, here, which in any case should be discounted wholly if the patent is held by someone with no designs on using it.
screen keyboard per se but rather, to have perfected this very
obvious idea with numerous enhancements to make it a great
way to input text on a mobile device.
So these guys supposedly came up with the idea 7 years ago.
Well, guess what? There have been touch screen keyboards long
before that, even (and especially) on mobile devices, albeit not
as small as a mobile phone like the iPhone.
Oh well, bottom feeders most likely have some role to play in the
whole ecosystem, otherwise I guess they would not exist...
prison for healthcare fraud, currently being appealed. He has
also filed a number of other patent lawsuits, I don't know how
they turned out.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?
articleID=201203118
Try a web search for information about SP Technologies LLC,
there isn't much out there. They don't seem to have a web site,
phone number, snail mail address. The business is supposedly
based in Florida, but the lawsuit was filed in Texas.
Yes, Apple is in real deep trouble over this patent violation /
snark
Maybe we should make a patent "an electronic device used by the user which is painted black" and sue every cellphone company in America.
Its ridiculous that patent trolls are allowed to leach off the innovation of the rest of society.
come up with ideas should be paid for having them, not have
their names dragged through the mud by libelous fan-boys.
Apple should go to the trouble of researching patents and
reward prior art if it is fair to do so. Apple's a good company.
Paying people who come up with good ideas that a good
company can use is good business. Long ago, I invented the
port-doubler and apparently just gave it away to the old Zenith
computer company. They went out of business. Had I gotten
paid something, anything, I could have invented the IPhone for
Apple ten years ago! ha ha
Too many congressmen are attorneys, and lawyers are now major
contributors to political campaigns. If you want to know which
candidate MIGHT want to reform the patent madness, look at the
number of donors he or she has who are members of the bar.
Or, easier, vote for Ron Paul, who supports getting rid of this legal
extortion racket.
Telewest (now Virgin Media) had an on-screen keyboard in its cable box firmware in 1999. I remember using something called a Concept Keyboard on a BBC Micro at Middle School in 1989.
Obvious things are being patented, innovation will stagnate unless patent law is reformed.
Once you have a touch screen on which you can program various buttons, the idea of making a keyboard or 10-key number pad is obvious.
- Software Patents: AAAARRGHH!!
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by isaacw06
August 7, 2007 2:15 PM PDT
- Come on! The Government needs to put a stop to this - and Apple is just as guilty as everyone else is. Where is the spirit of innovation? There's other ways to be profitable. Don't be evil!
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