Multi-Touch Tech Firm Seeks iPad Sales Injunction

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Multi-Touch Tech Firm Seeks iPad Sales Injunction

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday March 30, 2010 @05:27AM from the good-luck-with-that dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Taiwan-based Elan Microelectronics just filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission alleging that Apple is infringing on its patents and violating the Tariff Act, and is seeking a ban on imports of the iPad as well as an order to stop selling the mobile device along with iPhones, iPods, and Macs. The move was taken as a 'continuation of our efforts to enforce our patent rights against Apple's ongoing infringement,' the company said." Considering many iPad pre-orders have tracking #s already, I suspect it might be a little late.

34 of 148 comments (clear)

How do you say by ColdWetDog · 2010-03-30 05:29 · Score: 2, Funny

'Don't touch me there' in Chinese?

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
1. Re:How do you say by knappe+duivel · 2010-03-30 05:35 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  'Don't multi-touch me there' in Chinese?
  fixed that for you
2. Re:How do you say by knappe+duivel · 2010-03-30 05:59 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I must be new here
3. Re:How do you say by SOdhner · 2010-03-30 06:09 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I think that depends on the "fix". I've seen some pretty fantastic ones that are funny, insightful, or both. Of course I also see a lot of stupid ones, but if we stop the "fixed that for ya" replies a new meme will just step in to fill the void because the real problem is people who think something like that takes the place of quality content rather than accenting whatever is (or isn't) there to begin with.
4. Re:How do you say by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 06:10 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Yeah, while we're at it let's make sure that nobody posts anything that Peter doesn't want to read.
  From now on, all posts must be pre-approved by Peter.
  Who is with me?
5. Re:How do you say by pete-classic · 2010-03-30 06:29 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Mmmm. I'm not sold.
  -Peter
did anything come of the last suit? by Trepidity · 2010-03-30 05:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

They sued Apple a year ago with essentially the same complaint about the iPhone, iPod Touch, and MacBook.

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Wait... by AequitasVeritas · 2010-03-30 05:31 · Score: 4, Interesting

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt Apple suing HTC over, among other patents, multi-touch? Now Apple is being sued over the same thing?

So who actually owns this patent?
1. Re:Wait... by oldspewey · 2010-03-30 05:37 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I am secretly hopeful that this will eventually turn into a great big litigation circle-jerk.
  
  --
  If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
2. Re:Wait... by UnknowingFool · 2010-03-30 05:50 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's tricky and unless you know more details about the specific case, it's hard to say who actually owns what. This is what I know from the case:
  Apple bought a company called Fingerworks in 2005. Fingeworks made multi-touch keyboard and mice. Shortly after bought by Apple, Fingerworks ceased to sell or make any products. The best guess is that Apple bought Fingerworks solely for it's patents and technology. As of August 2008, Fingerworks continued to file patents.
  Apple releases the iPhone in 2007. Elan Microelectronics sues them thereafter.
  When looking at these patent cases, there has to be certainty about the specific technology involved. Multi-touch is large collection of differing technologies. MS Surface for example relies on cameras whereas the iPhone appears to use capacitance. The devil is in the details and that's what lawyers are for.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
3. Re:Wait... by msauve · 2010-03-30 05:51 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I believe that Apple is suing HTC over gestures which use multi-touch.
  
  The patent in this suit is related to sensing multi-touch, and is therefore a prerequisite to doing multi-touch gestures. Here's the patent.
  
  I have no idea of what relationship there is between Elan and Logitech (who was awarded the patent).
  
  --
  "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
4. Re:Wait... by rolfwind · 2010-03-30 05:58 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Apple bought fingerworks in 2005. They have their implementation of multitouch.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks
  That doesn't say who owns the patents, but this shows how stupid America pushing IP is... it's just going to bite us back bigtime when India/China compete on the high end.
5. Re:Wait... by Steauengeglase · 2010-03-30 06:05 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Because 2,495,510,734 people can't be wrong.
6. Re:Wait... by mea37 · 2010-03-30 06:09 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This kind of confusion is what comes of seeing a patent that covers a method of doing something that facilitates X, and calling it "the patent on doing X". It's not. There is no such thing as "the patent on multi-touch".
  There can be, and probably are, many patents related to multi-touch. It's quite possible, since there's more than one way to implement multi-touch, that you could own a patent related to mullti-touch and I could make multi-touch devices without licesning or infringing your patent.
7. Re:Wait... by mea37 · 2010-03-30 06:14 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  "this shows how stupid America pushing IP is... it's just going to bite us back bigtime when India/China compete on the high end"
  So... the argument against an IP framework is that those dern ferners might benefit from it too when they're the ones doing the innovative work? That soudns a bit nationalistic to say the least...
8. Re:Wait... by John+Whitley · 2010-03-30 08:16 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The best guess is that Apple bought Fingerworks solely for it's patents and technology.
  There's actually almost zero guessing on this point, although it takes some digging to find all of the facts. Much of the details were posted on the Fingerfans forum back when the purchase happened. Other useful info may exist primarily in the Internet Archive at this point.
  Synopsis: Fingerworks as a company was a young venture founded based on Wayne Westerman's Ph.D. work relating to capacitive multi-touch interfaces. Fingerworks was one of the first companies to have useful (awesome, actually) multitouch based products on the open market. These included the GesturePad, a multi-touch pointing device not dissimilar to the recent Wacom Bamboo Touch; and the TouchStream multi-touch keyboard. The TouchStream was pretty cool: max typing speeds were slower than a conventional keyboard, but the whole surface was usable for multitouch pointer input and gestures.
  Apple apparently liked what they saw and bought the company up -- its patent portfolio as well as Westerman and their core R&D team. This was not even remotely public knowledge at the time. To outsiders' view, Fingerworks practically vanished. The release of the first iPhone was the coming-out party for this technology at Apple. Westerman and his team have continued to do multi-touch research at Apple, issuing a variety of patents under the auspices of their new company. I recall a few of those being mentioned on Slashdot in the past, specifically one about ongoing work to improve haptics (touch feedback) for multi-touch keyboards.
Re:Patent Trolls by sir_eccles · 2010-03-30 05:42 · Score: 3, Informative

Thus proving that you didn't RTFA
Re:Patent Trolls by HungryHobo · 2010-03-30 05:43 · Score: 2, Informative

you don't lose patents just by being slow to enforce them(I think they're already suing in any case).
It's trademarks you lose if you fail to enforce them.
copyright patents and trademarks are 3 completely different things even if people like to lump them together under "IP"
Re:And Macs? by javakah · 2010-03-30 05:45 · Score: 2, Informative

The trackpads on the Macbooks are multi-touch.
HTC buying this company by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 05:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

Am I the only one who is seeing HTC buying this company?
Re:If their customs works like ours by joebok · 2010-03-30 05:51 · Score: 2, Informative

Mine started out in SHENZHEN, CN and is now in LOUISVILLE, KY. Hopefully past customs and unstoppable!
How do they get these patents? by Mark19960 · 2010-03-30 05:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes I know that prior art is not a slam dunk defense but with all of the prior art regarding 'multi-touch' I can't understand how these companies
managed to get it patented.
It seems that everyone has patented the idea except for the people that had it first!
And it appears that it was not Apple, Google, HTC, or even these guys....
I should patent something random and start to sue people myself, obviously someone is making money doing it.
Re:Patent Trolls by Bigjeff5 · 2010-03-30 06:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

didn't they kinda give up their rights when they stayed silent when the iPhone launched three years ago?
You mean when they began patent negotiations, and finally sued for patent infringement a year ago? You can't sue for patent infringement until someone actually infringes on your patent. Two years is not a long time when it comes to doing research and preparing for a patent infringement lawsuit, and it was Apple who requested the trial be delayed so they could prepare. You might have a point if they had waited five or ten years, but at this point any patent infringement lawsuit against the iPhone is still within a reasonable time-frame. It is Apple who is delaying and stalling and generally being a douchebag toward the rest of the cell phone industry here.
This is Elan Microelectronics basically saying Apple should not be permitted to release a new potentially infringing product while they have litigation in progress that directly concerns the type product they are releasing.
I think their position is completely reasonable, but I'll admit I might think differently if I were an Apple fan.

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Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Re:Apple being sued for stealing? by msauve · 2010-03-30 06:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

Apple on the other hand just keeps infringing those patents, but at the same time itself sues everyone under the sun for infringing their patents.
What's unique about Apple? I thought this was just how the whole (broken) system worked, and everyone did the same.

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"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Ugh by mosb1000 · 2010-03-30 06:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

This is why I don't want to take out patents for my invention. They don't seem to actually protect you from litigation, and they hinder the development and deployment of new technologies. Why should I have to wait until some worthless dipshit company's patent expires to buy an iPad? Why should there be a million lawyers involved in developing new technology (about the only people worse for technology than politicians are lawyers). Patents are a terrible idea. All the most successful technology companies simply ignore them (in a practical sense) and leave the issue for their lawyers to deal with.
1. Re:Ugh by Colonel+Korn · 2010-03-30 06:21 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Why should I have to wait until some worthless dipshit company's patent expires to buy an iPad?
  Apple's patents aren't stopping you from buying an iPad now.
  
  --
  "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Re:Apple being sued for stealing? by sopssa · 2010-03-30 06:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/29/2143218/Nokia-Claims-Patent-Violations-in-Most-Apple-Products
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/22/1541220/Nokia-Sues-Apple-For-Patent-Infringement-In-iPhone
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/01/28/2055209/Fujitsu-Readies-Lawsuit-Over-iPad-Name
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/03/15/1854220/Nokia-Claims-Apple-Does-Legal-Alchemy-To-Mask-IP-Theft
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/01/17/069258/Apple-Seeks-To-Ban-Nokia-Imports-To-US
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/14/1941208/Kodak-Sues-Apple-amp-RIM-Over-Preview-In-Cameras
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/09/12/11/2048248/Apple-Counter-Sues-Nokia-Over-Patents
Or just do slashdot search for apple patent or nokia patent..
Elantech has actual products. by krzy123 · 2010-03-30 06:25 · Score: 2, Informative

Elantech makes the multi-touch trackpads in the eeePC.
History of Multi-Touch by rivertripper · 2010-03-30 06:34 · Score: 5, Informative

I have been following this story since April of 2009. This link http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html is the best explanation of how multi-touch technology was created.
Re:Apple being sued for stealing? by mikael_j · 2010-03-30 06:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm taking all of these Company A is suing Company B which is suing Company C messes as a clear sign that the patent system (and in extension the entire Intellectual Property system) is slowly imploding. These days you couldn't invent the wheel without someone suing you since they own patents on "crafting an item out of a material", "objects made of matter" or any other silliness (I'm sure some pro-patent shill is going to start whining about how patents are needed to protect the little guy and whatever but in all honesty, the little guy can't afford patents, and if he is able to afford a patent or two the corporate giants will simply say "that's nice, here are 50 of our patents you're infringing on, now what do you think of our offer to purchase your patents/company for $low_sum?").

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Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
And where's Logitech? by earlymon · 2010-03-30 07:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

According to TFA, the patent in question is US Patent No. 5,825,352. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Steven Bisset and Bernard Kasser are the sole inventors (filed 1996) of the multi-touch tech - and Logitech was the assignee as of 1998.
According to this link, Elan was launched to do semiconductor R&D in 1994, per http://www.computex.biz/elan/
SO - unless Elan bought this Logitech something's terribly wrong with the article. Can anyone help me with this?
Elan is winning local awards, see - http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-200983370.html
but the idea that they themselves invented the tech on the patent in question is not accurate. Here's their list of their achievements - http://www.emc.com.tw/eng/about_elan1_3.asp
I'm a little confused here. Nothing wrong with selling technology and if Logitech did that, fine - but this sure seems like there's a lot more to this than "Apple rips off Taiwanese firm" - in my opinion.

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Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Re:Patent Trolls by Zordak · 2010-03-30 07:29 · Score: 3, Informative

Short answer: No. The statute of limitations on patent infringement is six years. And in the case of ongoing infringement, even if you miss the six year mark from when infringement started, you can still get damages back to six years from when you filed your law suit.

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Patent Trolls should maintain their patents by Gr8Apes · 2010-03-30 07:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

Apparently the patent in question, 5,825,352, has expired due to failure to pay maintenance fees as of Oct 20, 2006.
So if the patent is expired, what basis are they suing on?

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1. Re:Patent Trolls should maintain their patents by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 11:26 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  It didn't expire. Read the erratum here:
  http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/og/2007/week03/paterr3.htm
  In the notice of "PATENTS WHICH EXPIRED ON October 20, 2006 DUE TO
  FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES" appearing in the Official Gazette of
  December 19, 2006, all reference to Patent No. 5,825,352 which issued from
  Application No. 08/608,116 should be deleted since the relevant maintenance
  fee was timely paid in that patent.