Patent Law

Thomas Claburn reporting today, December 18, 2008, for InformationWeek writes:

Apple TV may still be struggling to find a place in the living room, but it will play an important role in an Illinois courtroom in the months ahead.

 

In a lawsuit filed against Apple on Tuesday, EZ4Media, a maker of wireless entertainment devices based in Bannockburn, Ill., said that the company's Apple TV, Airport Express, and Apple Macintosh personal computers infringe on its patents.

EZ4Media obtained the patents in question from Universal Electronics (UEI) in March. The company alleges that Apple hired three former UEI employees -- Nick Kalayjian, Bruce Edwards, and Wendy Goh -- about a year before it introduced Apple TV.

Each of these employees had access to UEI's confidential and proprietary information and left UEI for Apple within 30 days of each other in the second quarter of 2005, the complaint says. Apple TV was commercially introduced in September 2006.

Unlike intellectual property holding companies that exist purely to license and litigate, EZ4Media actually makes products based on its patents, such as its EZfetch digital media receiver.

In June, EZ4Media filed two other patent-infringement lawsuits, the first against Logitech, Netgear, and D-Link, the second against Samsung, Pioneer, Yamaha, DM Holdings, and Denon. Samsung was dropped from the second lawsuit when it settled for an undisclosed sum.

Read the full article here.