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Apple Sued Over MP3 Technology

Monday February 26, 2007 11:40 am PST by longofest
A small Texas based company is suing Apple, Samsung, and Sandisk for infringement on patent 7,065,417, which describes "an MPEG portable sound reproducing system and a method for reproducing sound data compressed using the MPEG method." According to InfoWorld, the suit was filed February 16th in Marshall, Texas, which has a reputation of being friendly to plaintiffs.

Apple, like many other large corporations, is routinely sued. In Apple's latest 10Q filing (pdf), Apple listed 33 outstanding lawsuits at the time. While most of the lawsuits brought against Apple never see press coverage, this one has seen increased interest from the tech community, possibly due to the recent Alcatel-Lucent MP3 licensing verdict against Microsoft.

That being said, it isn't clear what bearing, if any, the Alcatel-Lucent case will have on this lawsuit.
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richard4339
65 months ago
I would assume Apple will probably just settle out of court.
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justflie
65 months ago
Is apple actually guilty of anything here?
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longofest
65 months ago

Is apple actually guilty of anything here?


That will have to wait and be seen. I can't tell either way right now if this lawsuit has any merit.
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Analog Kid
65 months ago
Ah... The double edged sword of patents... They encourage innovation, but they also encourage random sniping among tech companies in the hope of confusing a jury and winning big.

If there's something to the patent, Apple will settle. If it's bunk, they may fight it just to discourage more of this.
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crees!
65 months ago

I would assume Apple will probably just settle out of court.


Considering Microsoft's payout was something around $1.5 BILLION?
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MacBoobsPro
65 months ago

Considering Microsoft's payout was something around $1.5 BILLION?


So its quite a big company sueing Apple then :D
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Sun Baked
65 months ago

Is apple actually guilty of anything here?


Yes, of coming to market late.

Buying the iPod technology from someone else, and actually making it in the marketplace.

A lot of these patent cases are landmines, companies/people routinely used to get around existing patents and improve products without as much trouble as the broken patent system causes today.
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Mgkwho
65 months ago
how stupid.


-=|Mgkwho
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Artofilm
65 months ago
In news today, Apple is being sued by a company called Virosoft.
Virosoft is sueing Apple because of Apple's infringement on patent 7,065,417,543,005 which describes "ability to make patents on any service or product created by any company in the entire world"


Geez, I wish everyone would stop sueing just because they can't get successful like Apple and other companies can.
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guzhogi
65 months ago
I wonder why they're suing Apple NOW? Apple (& pretty much everybody) has been using MP3s for a while now. I haven't seen any changes to how Apple software/hardware deals w/ MP3s. It seems like the plaintiff is more after the money than anything else.

Ah... The double edged sword of patents... They encourage innovation, but they also encourage random sniping among tech companies in the hope of confusing a jury and winning big.

If there's something to the patent, Apple will settle. If it's bunk, they may fight it just to discourage more of this.


I totally agree!
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