Sunday, December 15, 2024
Archived Post

Patent trollin’: Apple sued by an Irish non-practicing entity for, of course, patent infringement

Another day, another lawsuit. As noted by AppleInsider, Data Scape Limited is suing Apple for violating a data sync patent by way of iCloud, iTunes, and the various devices that use these services.

The Irish business filed in the lawsuit in the lawsuit-friendly U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The suit claims Apple violated U.S. Patent No. 10,277,675, “Communication System And Its Method and Communication Apparatus And Its Method” and asks for a jury trial. Data Scape Limited, a non-practicing entity backed by US and Irish investors, is now engaged in a total of 15 cases where it is suing tech behemoths for allegedly breaching patents it owns for technology that allows data transfer and storage.

From what I can determine, the company is a “patent troll,” an individual or an organization that purchases and holds patents for unscrupulous purposes such as stifling competition or launching patent infringement suits. In legal terms, a patent troll is a type of non-practicing entity: someone who holds a patent but is not involved in the design or manufacture of any product or process associated with that patent.

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.