Apple And AT&T Sued For Infringement Over iPhone Haptic Patents (computerworld.com)

Haptic technology company Immersion has accused Apple and carrier AT&T of infringement of three of its patents in the latest iPhone models and Apple watches. Immersion, which claims over 2,100 issued or pending patents worldwide covering various aspects and commercial applications of haptic or touch feedback technology, has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the import of the specified iPhone and Apple Watch models in the U.S., besides suing for damages in a Delaware federal court, company CEO Victor Viegas said in a conference call Thursday. Immersion decided to include AT&T and subsidiary AT&T Mobility in the action because the carrier is the most significant distributor of the iPhone in the U.S.

Comments

Cockroaches and patent trolls

[Iconoc]

They both will be around forever

Re:Cockroaches and patent trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously?

You should run for the Republican Presidency. They need people like you.

Don't think you couldn't do it either. You make more sense than Donald Trump. Of course, just standing silent anyone can make more sense than Donald Trump.

What are the actual patents about

[aberglas]

This is never covered in any coverage of patent cases. The actual substance. Because it is too hard for journalists to understand. So we just get the fluff.

I miss Groklaw.

Re:What are the actual patents about

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Popular misunderstandings about Apple's "rounded corner" patent make Slashdot's ad-counter spin. Slashdot thrives in commenter ignorance.

Re: What are the actual patents about

[ThosLives]

The law is "obvious to one skilled in the art".

If the problem, as stated above, was "Have the perceived vibration be constant regardless of where the device was held", any mechanical engineer would tell you the obvious solution is to vary the amplitude and/or frequency of the vibration at the source point so the amplitude at the measurement / sense point is constant.

In fact, due to physics, this is the only way to possibly do that.

So unless the patent is some novel way of determining the sense point and then from there the desired input intensity, where "novel" means "not just doing some kind of exact or simulated wave simulation", I'd say that is indeed an obvious solution and should not have been granted a patent.