Apple sued for having Kindle app on the iPhone
One of the least pleasurable things about being a manufacturer of consumer goods has got to be the lawsuits. Apple has yet another one on their hands, for allowing the Kindle app on the iPhone.
According to a number of reliable sources, the suit has been brought by a Swiss communications company called Monec Holdings. It was filed in a Virginia district court and alleges that Apple is guilty of “patent infringement, unfair trade practices, monopolization, and tortious interference.” Their rationale, apparently, is that when Apple allowed Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader app onto their iPhone platform, it violated a patent owned by Monec, specifically patent No. 6,335,678 titled “Electronic device, preferably an electronic book.”
We say “apparently” because the suit does not specifically single out the Kindle app, even though it was obviously brought shortly after the Amazon app became available in the app store. There are, of course, other e-book readers available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, such as the popular Stanza app, which has been available for over a year. It is known that Monec has also sued HP for patent infringement.
Monec is not exactly a household name, but a visit to their Web site reveals that their mission is to be “a leading innovator for mobile, globally usable communication solutions…with user-friendly products and pioneering solutions, Monec provides companies and users with secure, wireless access solutions which offer highest degree of flexibility, functionality, speed and independence.”
The current belief, according to an Apple Insider article, is that Monet filed suit because “Apple’s move to distribute digital book reading applications through the App Store, which it subsequently sees as an endorsement by the Cupertino-based company that its touch-screen handset can serve as a capable eBook reader.” That leads Monec to believe that Apple is in violation of it’s patent for a lightweight touch-screen device with “dimensions such that [...] approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size, this display being integrated in a flat, frame-like housing.”
Of course, many of these complaints would also appear to apply to other ebook readers, including the Kindle itself and the Sony device. It may be that Apple was targeted because of the touch-screen part of the patent, or simply because it was likely to become more popular than any of the other readers. It remains to be seen how this will play out in court.
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March 25th, 2009
Good article.
March 26th, 2009
Some lawyers just need to be killed.