Apple, Other Smartphone Makers Hit with Infringement Suits

The smartphone patent lawsuit derby continues with a company named SmartPhone Technologies suing Apple, AT&T, Research In Motion, Samsung, Sanyo, LG Electronics and Motorola, accusing them of violating patents owned by the company. Filed in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, the suit claims that primarily Apple with its iPhone but also the other companies have infringed SmartPhone Technologies’ patents related to Bluetooth connectivity or e-mail synchronization.
SmartPhone Technologies is seeking damages, costs and expenses from all the companies named in the lawsuit. While not naming the specific amount of damages being sought, the company is seeking a jury trail in the Eastern District of Texas, which repeatedly has ruled in favor of those seeking patent damages.
SmartPhone Technologies accused Apple of violating six patents: Patent No. 6,950,645 (Power-Conserving Intuitive Device Discovery Technique in a Bluetooth Environment); Patent No. 7,076,275 (Method and System for Single-Step Enablement of Telephony Functionality for a Portable Computer System); Patent No. 7,506,064 (Handheld Computer System That Attempts to Establish an Alternative Network Link upon Failing to Establish a Requested Network Link); Patent No. 7,533,342 (Method and Apparatus for Synchronizing an E-Mail Client on a Portable Computer System with an E-Mail Client on a Desktop Computer); Patent No. 6,711,609 (Method and Apparatus for Synchronizing an E-Mail Client on a Portable Computer System with an E-Mail Client on a Desktop Computer); and Patent No. RE40,459 (Method and Apparatus for Communicating Information Over Low-Bandwidth Communications Networks).
The company also claims that Motorola, Samsung and RIM are violating Patent No. 5,742,095 (Personal Communications Internetworking).
AppleInsider wrote March 10, “In its annual Form 10-K filed … last October, Apple said it was then defending itself from more than 47 patent infringement cases, 27 of which were filed during the 2009 fiscal year.”