April 27, 2009

Apple and patent infringement

With the credit crunch still taking its toll on almost everyone on a global scale the last thing that you would want as a business is to be involved on a patent infringement, but even worse than that is being on the losing the side.

But this is what’s facing Apple not only have they been found guilty of wilfully infringing patent rights, but the company have also been ordered by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall to pay out $19 million to Opti Inc.

Opti Inc applied for the patent for predictive snooping, a way of transferring data between devices in June 2002, the company took out the infringement case against Apple back in January 2007.

However, this highlights the problem that large companies have with patents and copyrights, leaving them open to legal issues.

Source [Ars Technica]