Roger Fingas
Apple is typically on the receiving end of lawsuits, but the company flipped the script this week and took preemptive legal action against a firm called Fundamental Innovation Systems International, hoping to deter any patent lawsuits related to USB charging.
The company has filed suit through the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asking it to declare that it doesn't infringe on patents FISI acquired from BlackBerry. A formal complaint speculates that it be could be the next target for FISI, which has already used legal pressure to secure licenses from corporations like LG and Samsung.
"Defendants have claimed, through letters, claim charts, telephone calls and in-person meetings with Apple personnel in this District, that certain Apple products infringe the Patents-in-Suit and that Apple requires a license to the Patents-in-Suit," lawyers for Apple wrote. "However, Apple's products do not infringe the Patents-in-Suit."
A key contention in Apple's defense is that many of its devices and adapters use Lightning connectors, instead of adhering strictly to the USB 2.0 standards cited in FISI's patents. Lightning cables do tap USB for power and data, but have custom endpoints and authentication technology.
Apple is nominally requesting a jury trial, but if its lawsuit has its intended effect, FISI may be forced to settle before that point.
Apple is regularly targeted by outfits like FISI, which produce no actual product and depend on lawsuits and royalties to make money. Normally they're defeated or settle out of court, but Apple did take a major hit recently when the federal U.S. Court of Appeals denied an appeal of a 2016 jury verdict in favor of VirnetX, putting it on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Andrew Orr
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Wesley Hilliard
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Amber Neely
10 Comments
That's the way to do it. If nothing else Apple can keep this out of East Texas.
Apple though moved to USB-C on the iPad Pro's. So using Lighting on one end really doesn't hold true as a argument any longer. The rumors are Apple may move to USB-C on the new iPhones for 2019. Which I think they should do. Reason being, the iPads are already using it. Myself having 30-Pin on my iPad 3 and then Lighting on my iphone kind of sucked as I would have to have 2 cables to use to charge with and deal with everywhere. Since Upgrading my iPad to a 12.9" iPad Pro Second generation, having 1 Lighting cable that works for both has been much better. It's also one of the reasons I didn't get the newest iPad pro, just because it went USB-C. I didn't want to go back to using 2 different cables once again.
I'd be more willing to agree with Apple here if I didn't believe they would do these same thing as these "trolls". Apple has hundreds, if not thousands, of patents for things they probably will never manufacture but you can bet for damn sure if another company released something that potentially infringed on it the Apple lawyers will be at their door with the quickness...