RSSTouch-screen lawsuits hit Apple, HTC, Dell, Toshiba, others
By Tim Conneally | Published June 24, 2008, 5:41 PM
Now that the Patent Reform Act (S. 1145) has been pulled from the Senate floor schedule, it looks like business as usual for patent litigants, as a holder of touch screen patents has launched a carpet-bombing assault.
Re-tooling a patent infringement suit aimed at Dell from 2007, Typhoon Touch Technology and co-plaintiff Nova Mobility Systems have added Apple, Fujitsu, Toshiba America, Lenovo U.S., Panasonic Corp. of North America, HTC America Inc., Palm Inc., Samsung Electronics America, Nokia Inc, and LG Electronics USA to its list of defendants.
In its original complaint, Typhoon alleged that Dell and Motion Computing Inc. were "using and profiting from" the company's patented technologies. Typhoon holds two patents on fundamental elements of touchscreen technologies, (#5,379,057, and #5,675,362 issued in 1995 and 1997. Both patents share the title "Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computer System employing Same," and have practically identical abstracts.
According to today's statement from Typhoon, only Motion Computing Inc. settled with the company, along with Electrovaya Inc. for its Scribbler tablet PCs.
The original suit said, "As further set forth in our Complaint, the alleged infringement by both Dell and Motion Computing absolutely impedes on our offering and has prevented us from obtaining our due royalties. We believe that their infringement was willful and therefore entitles us to treble damages."
Both the definition of "willful infringement" and situations potentially resulting in the dreaded treble damages (damages multiplied three times as punishment for willful misconduct) were major topics of the Patent Reform Act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Emily Berger and Richard Esguerra attribute vagueness in these areas to be a major factor for "chilling innovation." When a company could be hit with a willful infringement ruling for simply knowing a patent exists, many companies would simply license any patent that could be troublesome rather than risk suit.
A House version of the Patent Reform Act was passed last September, and was then placed on the Senate Judiciary Committee calendar last January. There is no telling how long the bill's hiatus could last, though a public hearing on the debate did take place three weeks ago.
Typhoon's complaint was filed in the US District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.
I don't understand these patents. They seem to be for a portable computer that uses a touch screen for input, and the first patent was filed in 1995. But Apple's Newton shipped in 1992 and had a touch screen for input, and the Palm Pilot shipped in 1993 or 1994 (?) and also had a touch screen. This looks like yet more money-grubbing by a bogus company run soley by patent attorneys that exists to extort money from legit companies. Outrageous.
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|things like this happen all the time but instead of getting permission to use the patent. big guys are always bullying the little guys, now they have to pay. i believe its a lot cheaper to get permission and pay a little fee to use it then to get hit with a lawsuit and have to pay a large sum of money at one time. im going to assume that other companies that have touch tech probably got permission to use the technology. i believe what danno is saying more than an idea should be patented, have an actual working product. any two people can have the same idea but who will actually bring it to life. its like saying i know how to do magic but neva showed you any tricks, but im no experts on patents.
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|Lets play the sue-happy game again!! YA!!!!
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|I hope Typhoon Touch, Inc. wins.
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|When this going to stop? Judges should just throw these case out if these patents holders does has a product/phototype or even intended to make use of their patents.
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|Unimaginable! A tech-based lawsuit that doesn't include Microsoft.
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|What about Nintendo? Doesn't the DS fall under touch-screen capabilities? Man, patent squatters are really losing their touch these days.
Hopefully someone can come up with some form of prior art and blow this away. Why do all of these holding companies seem to reside in TX, anyway?
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|Nintendo pays them royalties as does Microsoft. These arrogant companies like apple and Toshiba think they could just change these smaller companies ideas a little bit then make billions from their ideas. Its not just the idea that is patented, a patent has to be in detail. These are not frivolous lawsuits but the little guy getting stepped on.
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|Most of the technologies used in electronic devices were invented by large corporations. Just like RIM invented the technology used in their Blackberry phones. Unfortunately NTP somehow managed to screw RIM out of about $612 million dollars. Most of these lawsuits are frivolous.
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|Umm you haven't looked into these lawsuits have you. Its not like any of these companies have working models. They patent the idea and now that someone has come through with a working model these "idea makers" are sueing for monetary reimbursement. Threre really needs to be something done to the patent system. You should be able to file a patent but have a period of time to produce a working model. If you don't have one withing a certain (generous) time frame your patent becomes void.
Also this increases the prices of products to us (consumers) so that companies can get back the costs from these lawsuits.
I myself hold 3 patents for flying saucers, can't wait to sue someone for infringement!
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|And here we go again.
Patented the ability to touch stuff this time, I see.
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|Books are screwed I'm afraid, can't even flip a page...
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