Apple found guilty of infringing 3 patent troll MobileMedia’s ‘inventions’

By Christian Zibreg on Dec 13, 2012

This just in: Bloomberg tweets that a U.S. court has found Apple’s iPhone to infringe three patents owned by MobileMedia Ideas, owned jointly by Nokia, Sony and Denver-based patent licensing firm MPEG LA. Basically your typical patent troll, MobileMedia commands a treasure trove of 300 patents. Most of their filings were originally granted to Sony and Nokia so the two don’t have to get their hands dirty in direct litigation.

Now, Mobilemedia last month sued Apple over the iPhone call rejection and screen rotation features. It originally filed a complaint in Delaware in 2010 based on 14 patents in total, taking its case to trial after the number of patents was whittled to three: one for the camera phone and others for call handling and call rejection.

The screen rotation invention was originally granted to Sony in 1999, but Apple pointed to prior art such as patent No. 6,563,535 which covers displaying images right-side-up “regardless of the orientation of the image or the physical orientation” of the device… Read More

 

Patent troll hits Apple with iPhone screen rotation suit

By Christian Zibreg on Nov 10, 2012

A Boston University study from July pegged the cost of lawsuits filed last year by nonpracticing entities – that’s the code word for patent trolls – at an unbelievable $29 billion. Patents and lawsuits are their ‘products’ and Apple is among their favorite targets. You need look no further than Lodsys or VirnetX, which has expanded claims against Apple after winning $368 million in FaceTime case damages.

You can now add MobileMedia Ideas on your list of Apple patent trolls. Thanks to a Delaware federal judge, its suit against Apple over the iPhone screen rotation and call rejection features can proceed. What’s really peculiar about MobileMedia Ideas, apart from the obvious patent troll innuendo in its name, is that it’s a proxy for Sony and Nokia… Read More