Neil Hughes
Apple this month filed two complaints against Graphics Properties Holdings Inc., through its attorneys George A. Riley and Ryan K. Yagura of the Los Angeles-based firm O'Melveny & Myers LLP. Details of Apple's patent infringement complaints, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, remain unavailable for public viewing.
Graphics Properties Holdings countered last week with its own complaint lodged against Apple in U.S. District Court in Delaware. That complaint has been made publicly available, revealing that the company is accusing Apple of violating a total of three patents:
- United States Patent No. 6,650,327 - "Display System Having Floating Point Rasterization and Floating Point Framebuffering"
- United States Patent No. 6,816,145 - "Large Area Wide Aspect Ratio Flat Panel Monitor Having High Resolution for High Information Content Display"
- United States Patent No. 5,717,881 - "Data Processing System for Processing One and Two Parcel Instructions"
All three patents were originally filed in the 1990s. Two of them are assigned to Silicon Graphics, while the '881 patent was originally issued to Cray Research Inc. of Eagan, Minn.
Apple was first sued by Silicon Graphics in November of 2010 and was originally accused of just violating the '327 patent. But last week's complaint, filed under the new name of Graphics Properties Holdings, adds the two additional patents.
The latest lawsuit from Graphics Properties Holdings was preceded by a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission on Nov. 17. That wide-reaching lawsuit included Apple among a long list of defendants such as Sony, Samsung, LG, HTC and Research in Motion.
The ITC complaint is also related to the same '327, '145 and '881 patents singled out in the U.S. District Court lawsuit lodged against Apple in Delaware. Graphics Properties Holdings noted that companies including Microsoft and IBM license its technology, and has requested that the ITC Commission halt the importation of products made by the accused companies.
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35 Comments
"Large Area Wide Aspect Ratio Flat Panel Monitor Having High Resolution for High Information Content Display"
Patent an aspect ratio? I call dibs on 1:1.61803399
They do have many valid patents though I'm not sure how strong these three are. More so I don't think there is a video card out there that uses floating point in a frame buffer. Maybe my understanding of the term frame buffer is in error but they usually support 8 or 10 bits per color channel. Rasterization is another thing and that would be very involved as the GPu manufactures most likely already license those patents.
Sadly this is really another once great company searching for a way to avoid the end. Sort of like the Kodak of the computer world.
Patent an aspect ratio? I call dibs on 1:1.61803399
That's golden.
Patent an aspect ratio? I call dibs on 1:1.61803399
The way I read it they patented the idea of making a display larger and of higher resolution! This isn't a technology patent in my mind. It is like somebody seeing a half inch bolt and nut and then filling a patent for a three inch bolt and nut.
Steve said it. Apple learned its lesson from the M$ copy feast of the eighties and isn?t going to sit back and watch the plunder happen again.
It will be a show to watch, this newly emboldened Apple with its swords drawn. It will also be interesting to see if Apple has indeed stepped on others? patents but now is not the time for Apple to pay the distressed damsel in the patent plunder that has been a dog's lunch for too long now.