While the sight of legal papers being served to Apple by other large manufacturers such as Nokia and HTC for Cupertino's alleged infringement on their designs isn't much of a surprise to internet passersby, it's a wee bit more rare to find a smaller, less public company putting their dukes up to defend themselves against a perceived wrong. That scenario is exactly what we have here this morning, as according to AppleInsider. Apple and 35 other companies were called to task by InNova. Among the companies named in the papers were such notables as Bank of America, 3Com, AOL, Google, Frito-Lay, HP, JPMorgan, Chase & Co., RIM, Siemens, Wells Fargo, Yahoo, and JC Penny.

InNova's legal representation, the Lanier Law Firm, released a statement as to the disposition of the patent infringement suit:

“Email as we know it would essentially stop working if it weren’t for InNova’s invention. More than 80 percent of email is spam, which is why companies use InNova’s invention rather than forcing employees to wade through billions of useless emails. Unfortunately, the defendants appear to be profiting from this invention without any consideration for InNova’s legal patent rights.”

Now, about those rights--does the claim hold any water?

It's hard to say, but at first blush, InNova would seem to be more patent troll than a wounded intellectual property creator. The company's website, which was at the time of this article's writing insanely difficult to find, was thrown together in 2010 (even possibly this week) and contained precious little information on InNova or what services it provides. The site listed only one patent--that being the one which InNova's founder Robert Uomini, is declaring he has been wronged over.