TYLER (Legal Newsline) – A Colorado-based, inventor-owned company is suing Apple Inc. for patent infringement.
TracBeam LLC, which, according to court documents is a “limited liability company organized and existing under the laws of the state of Colorado,” alleged in its Aug. 8 complaint that Apple, one of the world’s largest multinational corporations, is making unauthorized use of its wireless location technology.
According to the eight-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas — a popular venue for such patent infringement suits — Apple’s iOS mobile operating system, the Mac OS desktop, its “Find My Phone” service and other applications used in Safari and Siri allegedly infringe on TracBeam’s U.S. Patent Nos. 8,032,153; 7,764,231; 7,525,484; and 7,298,327.
Jeff Eichmann, of Santa Monica, Calif., law firm Dovel & Luner LLP, is representing TracBeam in its suit against Apple.
“TracBeam is an inventor-owned company with patents that claim priority to a 1995 invention,” he said in an email. “Many of the core technologies that drive Apple’s location service — including indoor location techniques — were invented by TracBeam more than a decade before Apple even entered the smartphone market.”
Eichmann said they feel “well-positioned” heading into the case against the technology giant.
“Any inventor should expect a long and hard fight in enforcing its patents against Apple,” he admitted. “This case will be no different.
“But we expect to prevail and, specifically, to show the TracBeam patents are important to Apple and that’s why Apple has been willfully infringing them.”
Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
TracBeam — for which a website could not be found — has filed similar lawsuits against other companies, including Google, AT&T and T-Mobile.
According to the docket, Chief Judge Leonard Davis has been assigned the case.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at patents@legalnewsline.com.