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The Strange History of Apple and FlatWorld

Fnord666 writes "When a company called FlatWorld Interactives LLC filed suit against Apple just over a year ago, it looked like a typical 'patent troll' lawsuit against a tech company, brought by someone who no longer had much of a business beyond lawsuits. Court documents unsealed this week reveal who's behind FlatWorld, and it's anything but typical. FlatWorld is partly owned by the named inventor on the patents, a Philadelphia design professor named Slavko Milekic. But 35 percent of the company has been quietly controlled by an attorney at one of Apple's own go-to law firms, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. E-mail logs show that the attorney, John McAleese, worked together with his wife and began planning a wide-ranging patent attack against Apple's touch-screen products in January 2007—just days after the iPhone was revealed to the world."

5 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Jobs is already dead.

  2. Re:That Lawyer will not be a lawyer much longer. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    IAAL and I can tell you Mr. McAleese will not be a member of the bar much longer. As attorney offenses go, this is toxic / nuclear.

    This case will disappear quickly now that the real party-in-interest is revealed.

    I don't know. It sounds like he's building his resume to try a get a job with the RIAA or MPAA.

  3. Re:That Lawyer will not be a lawyer much longer. by Virtucon · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's what I was thinking. He's lost his job, no firm will rehire him and he'll be disbarred. He'll probably wind up writing story summaries for Slashdot.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  4. Re:Ummm... by justthinkit · · Score: 3, Funny

    The novice posts a theory.
    An expert refutes it.
    Guess which one gets the +5.
    Burma Shave!

    --
    I come here for the love
  5. Re:Ummm... by CrankyFool · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm not an attorney, but I'm married to one, and I can tell you that you just can't count on attorneys to be great spellers :)