Apple sued over Apple TV

A maker of wireless set-top boxes has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company hired away three employees with knowledge of technology that would be included in Apple TV.

In a six-page complaint filed Tuesday with the Illinois Northern Federal District Court, EZ4Media claims that Apple TV, AirPort Express, and Macintosh computers infringe on patents owned by the set-top box maker. The patents--specifically 7,130,616, 7,142,934, 7,142,935, and 7,167,765--were obtained in March by EZ4Media from Universal Electronics, according to InformationWeek, which first reported the suit.

In its suit, Bannockburn, Ill.-based EZ4Media claims that Apple hired three former Universal Electronics employees-- Nick Kalayjian, Bruce Edwards, and Wendy Goh--during the development of Apple TV.

"Each of these employees had access to (Universal's) confidential and proprietary information, and left (Universal) 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."

Kalayjian, who now works at Tesla Motors, told InformationWeek that he wasn't involved in the development of Apple TV and declined to comment further.

EZ4Media is seeking an injunction prohibiting Apple from further acts of infringement, as well as "damages adequate to compensate it for the infringement that has occurred, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty."

This is not the first lawsuit EZ4Media has filed over these patents. In June, the company filed two suits, the first against Logitech, Netgear, and D-Link, and the second against Samsung, Pioneer, Yamaha, D&M Holdings, and Denon. Samsung was dropped from the lawsuit after an undisclosed out-of-court settlement.

Apple representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

[iRhapsody]

I'd like to see how many contingencies will have to be disclosed on their fiscal F/S.

[ikramerica--2008]

I love these companies that buy patents then sue everyone in site hoping for a settlement. Its the 21st century version of a shakedown.

The AppleTV doesn't do anything that a normal Mac can't do. It even runs a modified OSX. It just trims it down to a Front Row style front end.

It's not a worthwhile enough execution to sue over. ;)

[AppleSuxLeo]

Apple steals stuff all the time and tries to pass it off as their own. Like when Jobs showed off the first iPhone with VVM. Well guess what ? Lots of other phones have VVM and the license fee to use it doesn`t go to Apple ;)

[pjhenry1216]

While its true that Apple does steal a *LOT*, if you read these parents, you'll realize they really never should have been issued. The first one could apply to a laptop connected to a tv streaming a movie from a server while using a mouse to control the playback. There's nothing innovative or unobvious about it. The next three are basically claiming a patent to playing sound from another source.

[ferretboy88]

I love how they act like they invented the touch screen. I used a touch screen ATM machine in 1985. It was around before Apple was even a company or before Steve Jobs had a kid he didn't pay for.

[Thomas, David]

The patents were obtained in "March".

How long have these people been employees at Apple? The AppleTV, and other products have been out for a very long time. I have some time this morning, I'm going to look up those patents.

[sanenazok]

Let's do some research people! The filing dates are in 2001, just do a search on Google patents and everything comes up.

[Thomas, David]

The patents were obtained in "March".

How long have these people been employees at Apple? The AppleTV, and other products have been out for a very long time. I have some time this morning, I'm going to look up those patents.


- Only reviewed the first patent so far, have to go to work. Bottom-line. Issued in 2006, and based on existing, and prior general knowledge. In other words, the patent should not have been issued, but that's typical of the USPTO anyways. No one stole anything. The only stealing that would occur is, if they enforce this, then everyone that delivers digital content will have to fight off these guys.

Read the patent.

[sanenazok]

OK, I guess you can come to your opinion as to the patents...but I would venture a guess that you didn't look at it very carefully or know enough about patent law to decide whether a patent is valid or not. I pretty much know this for sure since it takes months of research before a conclusion can be made and you decided you know within minutes of this story posting.

The more important part of the case is whether Apple employees did steal information from the earlier employer. That kind'a thing has nothing to do with patents and can be a big, big problem (just ask the Bratz dollz).

[goodspeed8701]

Apple always steal technology and makes it their own. I can even recall how they got the domain name itunes.

Spotlight was stolen from longhorn beta. They talk about os x like its stands on the own core. After every stealing they make.... they will make a presentation inviting people just to say M$ vista looks like mac.

I love that the have a case about patent now cos they like to patent things. lets see how they will feel about this.

[pjhenry1216]

Seriously, read the patents, they're a joke. They never should have been issued. I'm all for apple-bashing when they deserve it (which is most of the time), but I'm not going to wish they lose because that would be a loss for the tech world concerning patents in general and I think patents like this are a bigger problem then apple.

[zcollvee]

hahah sweet

[goodspeed8701]

@pjhenry... It doesn't matter if the patent is a joke but apple deserve this. Do You know how they thief stuff and then patent it? even the DOCK is not originated from apple but they made it their own and patent it.

Once again the domain and Name itunes was stolen from a british guy. Its been long but I saw a video on that, in a programme called click formally called click online on the bbc world news channel

[ikramerica--2008]

I love how everyone including the author is turning this into an anti-Apple thing. Read the article, and this company bought the patents from a third party and is suing EVERYONE. Apple is just one of many.

It's a shakedown. Nothing more.

Suing Netgear, D-Link, etc. is because those companies offer music receiver type products. Denon and those CE companies offer iPod docks including video, so that's obviously a patent infringement? not.

It's all a big scam. And I imagine that the Obama administration will eventually put a stop to this. The patent abuse system is one of the worst legacies of the Bush years, as it is harming innovation and American industry (foreign companies just ignore it anyway), which hurts the economy and jobs and such.

[iRhapsody]

"I love how everyone including the author is turning this into an anti-Apple thing. "

This comment deserves alot "LOL". While you're taking it that way, the author nonetheless has done his job that he owes to all the readers, reporting the fact.

By the way, you're way too judgmental. I don't know if you care to learn the fact that the author is an apple fan, a windows fan, or both, or neither. If he's an apple fan, then he's at least not seen as a "narcissist".

[BtmnHatesRbn]

Wow. If I was a Marxist-Liberal, I would've though this article came from WorldNetDaily for it's obvious delusions.

[rslc]

The patents should not be awarded in the first place.
They are part of open standard technology.

[Dalkorian]

Funny. Once again we have here an article about Apple full of comments from M$ slaves bashing Apple. Telling, isn't it? When do people typically outgrow this behavior, elementary school?

[Loujenkins]

Before you make comments on the validity of these patents you should take the time to review the patents in detail including ALL of the elements of the claims. Most of you have no background in patent law so you are just talking out of your ass because you love Apple or Obama. If you take yourself back to 1999 and 2000 when these patents and ideas were created the wireless home networking market did not exsist. The digital media market was in its very early stages. It looks like what these guys created was really unique in the market...and LAN based media converter that pulled content off the home LAN from a computer and converted that for playback on a traditional media playback device like a stereo or TV. The interesting stuff in the patents are the claims which relate to how the client controls the server and PULLS digital content bit by bit from the server (which is dumb instead of smart) and converts this digital content bit by bit to analog for playback on the traditional playback device (which only plays analog content and can't play digital content. Furthermore the control claims which reference using a remote GUI on the converter device and a IR based remote control to send commands THROUGH the converter device to the server on the other side of the LAN is really smart! All of the previuos devices out there before this time were analog only and had to be controlled by the PC...there is NOTHING out there in terms of prior art that covers this control aspect.. Then there are patents that cover the PODCASTING over network delivery which for the time they were written seem to be truly unique...especially when you look at the history on the patent (office actions from the PTO and responses.

I love the guy that talk about how Obama is going to fix the system and that Bush screwed this whole thing up. Get it straight big guy...Bush actually pushed the PTO to screw patent holders over the past 8 years in favor of large corporations...the appeals judges he appointed have set historic levels for reversing IP judgements/award in appeal...Obama has said he is going to come in and the level the field on this for the little guy.

[billmosby]

Seems to me it all boils down to using a computer of some sort to process information of some sort. Details may vary, of course, but the general principle is obvious. That's why we need people well versed in the law- to provide sufficient layers of obfuscation to allow monetization. I say, keep a big can of Troll-Away handy at all times.

[RogerOne0]

This isn't about being well versed in the law as much as it is about being ignorant on common technology relative to extremely wide claims that are simply ridiculous. These patents appear to be obvious and there dates are suspect, relative to commonly found capabilties of many cable set top boxes designed and sold in the 1990's relative to supporting various pay capabilties, similar to pay per view. This kind of functionality could also be found in a common ethernet enterprise network in an obvious- but a distributed fashion with functionality spread across multiple boxes... "The patent clerk made a mistake", "the patent clerk changed", "the patent office is overworked", "the patent office is understaffed", " the patent clerk gave up and decided, to let the court decide"- these are the common themes of the time and the rallying cry of a new form of pirate who precisely exploit's the weaknesses of a patent system in order to then lay claim to the hard earnings of valid businesses. As they cloak themselves behind a smokescreen, the patent lawyers and there lobbyists created solely for themselves, of twisted patent processes and default court etiquette (you are guilty until you can prove your innocent) that maximize there own income at a terrible loss to the rest of the most productive part of society. The patent process needs serious reform... With out reform the present patent office is today a greater liability to the future of society then it is an asset and it would be better to abolish it completely then keep it.