Apple Sued Over iPhone Keyboard
Everybody seems to want to take a bite
out of Apple these days. If it isn't a law suit over battery life
it's apparently a law suit over the keyboard. This time it isn't a
customer filing the law suit, but rather a patent-infringement case
filed by SP Technologies.
SP Technologies is claiming that Apple is infringing upon a patent that they filed, which covers: "a method of providing a user interface for receiving information from a user using a user immutable graphical keyboard linked to an input area."
“Patent suits, of course, are a dime
a dozen, and Apple's not exactly the first company to ever use a
touch-screen style input method. But this one will probably require
more effort to defend than the iPhone
battery suit filed a few weeks ago. The suit was filed Thursday
in Tyler, Texas, which has become the destination of choice for
patent suits these days.“
It does seem possible that SP
Technologies could be suing Apple not only because of the possibility
of being awarded compensation based on units sold, but also because
the iPhone is one of the most hyped products in recent history. If
SP Technologies can make enough noise, they might become a household
name, for better or worse.
A victory against Apple might also open the floodgates for SP Technologies to sue other companies who have soft-keyboards.
