Apple Being Sued Over Caller ID Patents

[Akshay Masand]

It seems like Apple ends up heading to court very often nowadays and this time ist no different. Seattle-based Cequint Inc. is seeking unspecified damages related to claims of Apple products infringing on caller ID related patents. The company who seeks to go to court in Wilmington, Delaware (where the complaint was filed yesterday) wants to prevent Apple from using the technology being disputed.

There aren’t too many details out as of yet regarding the case or Cequint’s claims, but it is important to note that the company seems to have close ties with major U.S. carriers as well as Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone vendors. Cequint’s caller ID technology can currently be found in Verizon’s pre-installed City ID app and T-Mobile’s Name ID service, which launched in July. Aside from these two places, the technology is integrated in over thirty other handsets that include competing platforms, several wireless carriers, and several handset manufacturers as well.

The two patents that were presented to the courts are focus in on caller ID data. One being for “Caller ID equipment which displays location of caller” and the other being a “Decoding and processing system for advanced determination of display of geographic information to a called party.” As always, we’ll keep you updated with any information regarding the topic as its released, so stay tuned!

Source: Bloomberg, Google Patents (1) (2)

[iphonogasm]

Lol everyone's out to get apple

[RICO_]

Lol everyone's out to get apple

Lol Apple's out to get everyone.

It goes both ways.

[prestone683]

About time apple gets what's coming to them. It's just getting stupid. And until someone grows up. It's going to get worse.

[firetwuck]

The first patent should be expired by now since caller ID came out 20 years ago. But this smells weird regardless.

[-JailbreakeR-]

I didn't look into this but it's not the "caller id" they worried about but more the geotagging data. That's why both mention location info. So caller id being out 20 years is irrelevant here.

[jmillermcp]

“Decoding and processing system for advanced determination of display of geographic information to a called party.”

So area code lookups are patented? It's not even true CallerID, hence the Unknown if they're not a contact. Plus the location lookup happens after the call in the recent call list not when the call is incoming.

[-JailbreakeR-]

So area code lookups are patented? It's not even true CallerID, hence the Unknown if they're not a contact. Plus the location lookup happens after the call in the recent call list not when the call is incoming.

It's all sent at same time not after the call. It's just listed there when you hang up. Mine shows location of number regardless of if they are a contact in my phone or not.

[Onyx0mello]

People are mad that apple is worth billions lol.... Don't hate on apple =p

[Cellular]

Waiting for the tv series "Patent Wars" I am sure it will be a hit.

[jOnGarrett]

Lol everyone's out to get apple

yet another example of Apple using other companies patents without permission and with no compensation but make a rectangle shaped tablet that's thinner and lighter than Apple's and you get sued for making a rectangle shaped device.

[Frankiehr]

Waiting for the tv series "Patent Wars" I am sure it will be a hit.

Lol

[Cheesey123]

Here we go again!!! Same s**t different day.