iPhone Infringes On Sony, Nokia Patents, Says Federal Jury

snydeq writes "A federal jury in Delaware has found Apple's iPhone infringes on three patents held by MobileMedia, a patent-holding company formed by Sony, Nokia and MPEG LA, InfoWorld reports. The jury found that the iPhone directly infringed U.S. patent 6,070,068, which was issued to Sony and covers a method for controlling the connecting state of a call, U.S. patent 6,253,075, which covers call rejection, and U.S. patent 6,427,078, which covers a data processing device. MobileMedia has garnered the unflattering descriptor "patent troll" from some observers. The company, which was formed in 2010, holds some 300 patents in all."

Comments

links to patents

[schneidafunk]

patent 6,070,068, which was issued to Sony and covers a method for controlling the connecting state of a call

patent 6,253,075, which covers call rejection

patent 6,427,078, which covers a data processing device

There's your problem ...

[gstoddart]

U.S. patent 6,427,078, which covers a data processing device

Is so broad as to cover everything like a computer, but smaller.

From the actual patent:

The object of the invention is a device for personal communication, data collection and data processing, which is a small-sized, portable and hand-held work station comprising a data processing unit (2); a display (9); a user interface (10, 11); a number of peripheral device interfaces (12, 17); at least one memory unit (13); a power source, preferably a battery (3); and an application software. According to the invention the device also comprises a camera unit (14). The camera unit (14) comprises a camera (14a), preferably a semiconductor camera, and optics (14b) connected thereto, which are placed in the housing (1) of the device. Alternatively, the camera unit (14) is fitted on a PCMCIA card (15) which can be connected to the PCMCIA card slot (16) of the device. An object of the invention is also a PCMCIA card (15) provided with a camera unit (14).

I'm sorry, but that's Von Neumann architecture with some form of camera attached.

Since it starts with the definition of work-station and then simply says it is hand held, it basically is one of those "with a computer" (or in this case cell phone) patents.

I'm not going to go through each of the claims on the patent, but I'm not seeing anything in here that sounds like an invention -- just a description of a small computer with its own display. Which to me, means this patent should have never been granted.