Barely a month after settling its marathon China iPad trademark lawsuit with Proview, Apple is already facing a fourth new lawsuit in the country. The subject? FaceTime.
TNW:
Following Chinese legal claims in relation to Snow Leopard and two Siri cases (including a university in Taiwan), a Taiwanese man is claiming that Apple’s video calling service infringes on a patent he holds for “voice network personal digital assistant” technology, according to MIC Gadget.
The man, whose surname is Lee, is apparently not seeking specific compensation as of yet, but has taken his case to the Intermediate People’s Court in Zhenjiang and is requesting that Apple cease the violation.
The patent had previously been owned by Lee’s former employer, but has been transferred to him. His lawyer claims Lee developed it to reduce the need for overseas calls, which Lee regularly incurred costs for through work.
Lee is a technician of a Taiwanese tech company, he needed to travel aboard to various cities for work, therefore he always made international call to his company, parents and friends. Due to this reason, Lee was inspired and came up with an idea of implementing internet call feature on phones. Subsequently, he applied a patent for this idea in 2003.
Chinese media reports that the court has contacted Apple about the suit, but has not yet received a response. The trial is due to start this month, so Apple might want to start checking their messages sometime soon.
