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Jan. 7, 2009 | S.E. Texas' Legal Journal
 
NEWS

Texas company sues Apple for patent infringement in iPhone technology

11/25/2008 5:23 PM
By Marilyn Tennissen

Apple Inc. has been called out by a Texas company that alleges the technology used by the iPhone to surf the Web infringes a patent the company obtained less than a month ago.

The federal lawsuit was filed by EMG Technology LLC on Nov. 24 in the Tyler Division of the Eastern District of Texas.

According to the original complaint, U.S. Patent No. 7,441,196 was issued to inventors Elliot Gottfurcht, Grant Gottfurcht and Albert-Michael Long on Oct. 21. The patent is titled "Apparatus and Method of Manipulating a Region on a Wireless Device Screen for Viewing, Zooming and Scrolling the Internet."

The complaint says the inventors assigned the rights and title of the '196 Patent to EMG on Nov. 19.

According to an article by Reuters, EMG was founded by Gottfurcht, is based in Los Angeles with an office in Tyler and has just one employee.

The complaint alleges that various models of the Apple iPhone, which are capable of browsing the Internet using a small screen, infringe the '196 Patent.

According to Reuters, EMG has not considered suing companies such as HTC Corp, maker of the G1 Google phone, or Research in Motion Ltd, maker of the BlackBerry, which also produce devices that can display mobile websites.

"We haven't looked at anything other than the iPhone," Gottfurcht's lawyer Stanley Gibson told Reuters. "That was the device that we looked at. Obviously it's very popular."

Gibson is a partner with the Los Angeles law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro.

EMG is also represented by Charles Ainsworth of Parker Bunt & Ainsworth PC in Tyler.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis.

Case No. 6:08-cv-447-LED

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