Dave Horvath
7 Aug 2007 19:57
Its nothing new for smaller companies to issue frivolous lawsuits once a successful product has been launched by a powerful conglomerate. Although, this newest one just might have some warrant. SP Technologies has taken out a lawsuit on Apple over its new iPhone and the touch-screen keyboard that is the heart of controlling the device. Looking through a patent filing from 2000 by SP Technologies, it states that the company had 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."
Of course, people sue over patents all the time and Apple wasn't the first company to incorporate a touch-screen input device. The suit was filed in Tyler, Texas on Thursday. Texas seems to have become the state of choice for all patent suits recently. It just might be because judges tend to be lenient on the smaller companies.
This comes just a few weeks after a lawsuit was entered about the iPhone's battery. The lawsuit was taken out against Apple in the name of one iPhone owner, Jose Trujillo who claimed Apple defrauded him by failing to reveal that the iPhone battery was not user-replaceable, and that it would die after 300 charges.
Source:
CNet