Apple Sued Over iPhone Browser

SpuriousLogic writes "A Los Angeles real estate developer is suing Apple for patent infringement over the way the iPhone navigates Web sites. The suit, which was filed on behalf of EMG Technology, seeks unspecified damages. EMG Technology is a company that holds the patents of Elliot Gottfurcht, the real estate developer, as well as Marlo Longstreet and Grant Gottfurcht. The company claims that the iPhone infringes on patent 7,441,196 — a patent that was approved only last month, after a filing process that began on March 13, 2006. That patent is for an invention that displays 'on-line content reformatted from a webpage in a hypertext markup language (HTML) format into an extensible markup language (XML) format to generate a sister site.' This sister site is a simplified version of the original site that is then displayed on any number of devices — including cell phones, EMG says."

Comments

I think Opera Mini does the same thing?

[ekran]

Isn't this how Opera Mini works?

I think it fails on substance

[Tjp($)pjT]

The Safari browser on the iPhone does not generate a sister site nor does Apple, so on the face of the claims this seems to be a grab a the deep pockets of Apple when current sentiment is to settle to avoid expenses of trials. It seems to me that the people opposing Apple in this matter are either ignorant of the way safari works on the iPhone or seek to broaden the already broad to the point of absurd claims of the patent to cover some hypothetical mechanism that could possibly be used for a browser for the iPhone. I hope the courts squash this quickly (even though the Texas court leans heavily in the favor of patent holders and seems to have a fairly high level of misunderstanding technology and lacks fair understanding of the state of the art). While some individual claims may in fact cover aspects of Safari's operation, those claims are overly broad and are restricted to appling to the prior claims cases and are subordinate to them. If Safari is held to violate this then almost all mobile phone browsers would be in violation simply because you can manually change the displayed portion of the web page at the broadest interpretation of the patent. So if you allow that Safari does violate this patent then all mobile browsers violate it, and thus those in existence prior to the earliest claimed priority can be shown as prior art. So in short, if this patent describes Mobile Safari, it also describes Prior Art and is invalid.

Just my take on reading through the patent and applicable prior documents. And while I used to be paid for my opinions on such matters I did not do such due dilegence as to make this something I'd go into court with, but it seems Apple will have an easy case here and just have to spend an outrageous amount of money to defend itself since the honorable Texas Court is biased in eyes of most people in the field and thus is almost always the chosen venue for people to press such cases especially marginal ones or ones without technical merit.