Seriously, it appears that nothing changes over at Apple Legal. Yet again they are being sued, this time by a company called St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants. They claim that Apple's iPhone infringes on four digital camera patents that the company holds. The four include the ‘459, ‘219, ‘010 and ‘899 patents.

459: Take image contained within lens and store in some type of memory.
219: Display the picture that will be taken in some type of display window.
010: Push button in order to capture image.
899: Make images contained within some type of memory and make them viewable in some sort of digital camera roll.

I don't know much about law, but this seems utterly ridiculous. What I don't understand is how these even become patents in the first place. You'd think that something like this could be used against any number of digital photography products.

It appears St. Clair has been playing this game of patent infringement lawsuit for quite some time. In 2001, it sued Sony for infringing these same patents and won a $25 million judgement against the company. In 2003, it sued Canon and was awarded $34 million in damages. This just absolutely blows my mind. Not only are they playing this ridiculous game, they are actually winning! WTF!?

Now it's Apple's turn. Will they pay up or fight for the sake of justice? Discuss below.

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makes you wanna go on a rampage and kill people doesnt it. the people being the ones who patent this stuff. Same thing is happening with microsoft while they try to make a mechwarrior 5 game. the US company that bought the patenting rights to the macross designs AFTER the macross designers gave the ok for the original company to make the game with the designs decides to sue em and try to cease production wins. its rediculous.

I don't get it, and somebody should seriously go throw them over. How do you even take a picture without pressing a button? Maybe that's why people are making touchscreen phones though.
I wonder why people haven't actually go and complain to a higher power about this. It's like free-loading off people just because you have a patent sitting somewhere that allows you to just grab millions off companies. After reading the patent itself, it seems that you can argue that some companies made cameras after the patent was bought, but then again, EVEN BEFORE the patent was done, there was already companies that had started to MAKE the cameras.
Anyways, Apple should just fight and try to kick their asses. I think they have the whole world's support there.

The game is really nothing new. That and Apple does the same thing, so imo what goes around comes around. The way I see it, whether Apple wins or lose, buying an Apple will still cost an arm and a leg.

Originally Posted by Acrain I don't get it, and somebody should seriously go throw them over. How do you even take a picture without pressing a button? Maybe that's why people are making touchscreen phones though. I wonder why people haven't actually go and complain to a higher power about this. It's like free-loading off people just because you have a patent sitting somewhere that allows you to just grab millions off companies. After reading the patent itself, it seems that you can argue that some companies made cameras after the patent was bought, but then again, EVEN BEFORE the patent was done, there was already companies that had started to MAKE the cameras. Anyways, Apple should just fight and try to kick their asses. I think they have the whole world's support there.

It doesn't matter whether or not they have the World's support or not, the law is the only thing that matters in court. Sony and Canon already lost to these guys, I doubt Apple Legal can win. It's ridiculous.

Let see... if they play it like that...
There must be a reason why they won against the big company like sony and canon
then the last is how apple gonna respond to them?
is apple gonna fall like sony and canon?
that is the question =3 from my analysis~

seems to me like Apple should try to fight for it... or stop making cellphones XD
but those patents are ridiculous O.o can they really patent that? it's like patenting something like "breathing" and everyone would have a lawsuit on their a**es
but if Sony and Cannon already fell before them...then I don't see any good fortune coming up to Apple Legal
shall we see how this plays out? ^^

This just shows that to the legal institution, be it with or without rational, laws are laws, and needs to be worship...

Stupid. Can't put it better.

It's simple if you patent something the rights to it are yours alone for a set amount of time (generally 15-25 years). If someone else wants to use something in your patent, they must ask for permission or rent out the patent or buy the patent outright.

It's just something the world needs to live with, so deal with it.

Anyways who cares this happens to big companies. Apple, Canon, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Dell, and Gateway have all had this happen, and guess what. They're friggin' huge companies that have excess cash to burn. St. Clair won't bother with small fries, so if you or I started a business that lifted one of their patented items, odds are we'd be fine unless something really bad happened (like said product resulted in deaths)

I for one am glad, any pain caused to Apple makes me feel good.

Who cares what Apple does (which will probably make your contract even more expensive), so drop your contract for your iPhone and get a Motorola Droid or Palm Pixi (or whatever other new nifty smart phones are out there).

Originally Posted by jonybravito those patents are ridiculous O.o can they really patent that? it's like patenting something like "breathing"

And to put it simply, yes. You can patent anything as long as you're first. You'd be surprised at how many patents there are out there for alien space craft and for many things that can't even be developed by current technology, like cold fusion reactors.

This is pretty lol. I wonder what happened to all the other companies not mentioned.

You know, I remembered this one time Apple sued Microsoft for infringing several patents of Apple's OS. Funnily enough, they lost, and even more ironically enough, I think Microsoft bought those patents. We're talking about 200+ or so.

Originally Posted by sbeal The game is really nothing new. That and Apple does the same thing, so imo what goes around comes around.

^This.

This isn't the first time it happened. No one ranted...no, I bet even half of you didn't even know that Sony and Canon got sued by these guys before Apple came in. It's big business guys, when you're part of a big tech company, you're bound to get sued for over half the stuff you create. It's just a matter of settling. Most cases, they won't even go to court, reps from both corp. will meet up and settle, possibly with Apple buying the patent like they did for the "iphone" name

Well this is simply the patent system at work. The problem is that is has been perverted to be used as a form of horse trading between companies. As far as I know patents are very rarely used by engineers in the IT field to learn about new methods. So at least in this industry area it has failed utterly "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
I really doubt that the money which is spent on the whole patents system, i.e., USPTO, courts, patent lawyers can be compensated by any increased innovation, if any, that the patent system fosters in this area.

There seems to be a huge difference between the American patenting system and the European one. Let's take an example. Last year, a compagny we shall call Macrohard to protect its anonimity patented the idea to use XML to store text for documents. Well, the exact patent is slightly more precise, but the main idea is there.
The fact is that if you unzip an ODT file (Open Office document), you shall find... XML. And Open office has been saving data in XML format for ages...
This pattent has been accepted by the US system, but not by the European counterpart, at least not the first time it was proposed...

Someone might have already patented that technology in Europe. Or perhaps the patent offices over there don't recognize pending patents from companies that are in the middle of lawsuits (for being a monopoly and violating anti-trust laws in the EU).

If my memory's right, the EU patenting authority said that it wasn't legal to pattent this kind of ideas. But they alrady accepted other pattents that were as stupid as this one.