Apple sued over iPhone keyboard
The first iPhone lawsuit might have been somewhat laughable, but the second one may be a little more serious.
An outfit called SP Technologies has sued Apple over the touch-screen keyboard at the heart of the iPhone, claiming Apple is infringing on a patent held by SP Technologies for a similar keyboard. AppleInsider dug up the SP patent filing from 2000, which claims the company developed a "method of providing a user interface for receiving information from a user using a user immutable graphical keyboard linked to an input area."
Apple was sued last week by a company claiming a patent on touch-screen keyboards.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)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.
An Apple representative did not immediately return a call seeking comment, but it's unlikely Apple would have much to say at this stage.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.
