A US jury in a Delaware court has ruled that Apple’s popular iPhone infringes on three software patents being held by MobileMedia, a software patent holding company.
According to its website, MobileMedia itself owns about 300 technology patents relating to the usage of smartphones and other mobile computing devices — many of which were originally granted to Sony and Nokia. According to Bloomberg, it first brought its lawsuit against Apple back in 2010, claiming the smartphone maker violated 14 of its patents, including those covering screen rotation, rejecting calls, and “transmitting GPS coordinates” as part of getting mapping directions.
The patents ruled on were eventually narrowed down to three. Apple failed in its attempt to get the case thrown out, and the lawsuit proceeded to the jury verdict.
MobileMedia Chief Executive Officer Larry Horn said, “We’re very pleased, we think it’s justified.”
No indication has been given as of yet as to what damages will be assessed against Apple.
The three 1990s era patents that the jury ruled that Apple infringed are:
- US 6,070,068 — Covering displaying call options on a screen and controlling call options for multiple calls.
- US 6,253,075 — Covering a method of determining that an incoming call on a mobile phone should be rejected and then ending communication accordingly. One of the claims also covers notifying the user of the incoming call and allowing the user to reject the call.
- US 6,427,078 — Covering a mobile phone with a camera, display, processor, user input, and optics for obtaining image information, and transmitting image information to another location via RF.
Apple has not commented on the verdict.
