Apple Hit with Patent Infringement Suit
Posted 12/02/2009 at 11:12pm
| by J Keirn-Swanson
With new smartphone models hitting the stores left and right, it seems someone might just be angling for a little attention for their "iPhone Killer."
Emblaze Ltd., the Israeli company well-known for their years of work in streaming media, has decided, hot on the heels of releasing their new smartphone, that it was also time to hit Cupertino with a little legal action.
Claiming that Apple's recently announced "HTTP Live Streaming Application... intended for use in Apple's iPhone and iPod touch devices, infringes Emblaze's U.S. patent for media streaming technology,” the company decided to take the case to patent court. This seems a reasonable enough step if your interest lies in protecting your intellectual property.
However, Apple's IETF submission for this particular streaming protocol was originally dated back around May, so the timing of this announcement seems a bit hard to credit. Apparently six months was what it took Emblaze to put together their patent-infringement challenge. Yet coincidentally, a week before making that challenge, a subsidiary, ELSE Ltd., announced to little fanfare the release of their iPhone competitor, the Else.
The timing of an attention-getting press release hot on the heels of or just before the announcement of a major debut for your company isn't a completely new strategy. Would it surprise you at all if we told you that the Else handset just happens to use the particular technology in question?
