A new lawsuit charges Apple with violating certain patents regarding the iPhone’s Safari Mobile web browser, and the way a user can pinch, zoom, rotate and view web pages. As the Supreme Court tightens its patent policy, this one might be a little trickier to defend.
EMG Technology, LLC claims that Apple is in direct violation of a patent titled “Apparatus and method of manipulating a region on a wireless device screen for viewing, zooming and scrolling internet content.”
The patent itself explains, “A method and apparatus of simplified navigation. A web page is provided having a link to a sister site. The sister site facilitates simplified navigation. Pages from the sister site are served responsive to actuation of the sister site link. In one embodiment, the sister site includes matrix pages to permit matrix navigation.” EMG seems to think that the entire user experience Apple has built into Safari (zooming, pinching, launching a new web-page) violates the patent.
But that’s only part of it. According to statements made by EMG attorney and “IP expert,” Stanley Gibson, the company is suing Apple over various other companies making mobile versions of their websites for easy display and navigation on the iPhone. “For example, to access NBC on a computer the URL is NBC.com. For the mobile site on the iPhone, the URL would be m.NBC.com,” Gibson said in a statement. “The ‘196 patent covers the simplified interface of reformatted mobile content to provide optimum viewing and navigation with single touches on a small screen.” Which is totally why EMG is suing Apple and not, say, NBC. Or Motorola, which also displays mobile-formatted web pages. Or Palm. Or Microsoft. Or anyone, really,” Jacqui Cheng explains for Ars Technica.
Additionally, EMI is seeking an injunction against Apple which would prevent it from continuing to use the technology that allegedly violates the patent being referenced. The Supreme Court has recently tightened its policy on software based patents that seem “obvious”, so this one might be a little more difficult to defend.
3 Comments to “Patent Infringement Lawsuit Targets iPhone and Mobile Web Surfing”
i’m sorry but if someone is going to sue over a patent they need to have to sue all violators, to pick and choose to bunk. and then there is this issue of the whole reformat. given that not all sites are reset that way (forcing me to zoom etc) the move is by the content providers not Apple. I hope the whole thing is tossed out with the judge laughing.
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Lucas, do you mean that not just Apple should be getting sued? If so, I would have to agree. Apple however, is constantly in the spotlight and they always have someone trying to exploit to the law or nail them on some bogus patent case.
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Dear Lucas and Aviv,
As a mac guy myself, I always find it a bit stupid when these patent litigation are always focused and after the big companies. Apple, as we all know, is always under the patent spotlight whenever they release a new product.
Talking more on this, have you read about Google Android’s recent debacle?
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