Another day, another lawsuit. Apple is being sued for patent infringement by a company called Softview over the way it displays mobile content on its iPhone and iPod touch devices, reports "The Loop" (http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/05/12/apple-sued-over-safari-web-browser...).
According to court documents filed in the District of Delaware, Softview alleges that Apple is infringing on its so-called ‘353 patent, issued to Gary Rohrabaugh and Scott Sherman, and owned by Softview. The patent describes the “Scalable Display of Internet Content on Mobile Devices.”
AT&T is also being sued since it sells the iPhone in the U.S. Softview is asking the court for a preliminary and permanent injunction against Apple, and an unspecified amount of cash, notes "The Loop."
SoftView (http://softview.us/index.html) makes a vector graphic display system and web browser for PDAs, cell phones, and other Internet devices. It includes vector graphic viewers and web browsers for PDA, Cell Phone, Smart Phone, desktop, portable wireless, and other Internet devices.
Comments
Android vs. iPhone
Most likely, Apple will be involved with this kind of issues because iPhone nevertheless has the bigger share of the market. The biggest issue the cell phone industries handle is who has the larger market share. This battle seems to now be between Android vs iPhone and although the iPhone is nevertheless in the lead the Android is gaining ground.
I think these lawsuits will
I think these lawsuits will get worse as apple is becoming more successful. This was the case at Microsoft, Google and will be the same at Apple. Their "exploding" stock makes everybody jealous.
My prediction is that they will be forced to censor the access to the web, the same way that they have to check every app before it becomes available in the app store. Maybe I am a little bit guilty too because I often use my iPhone to get music via online converters and such web-apps would probably not be approved by the apple employees to be published in the app store.
However, apple will succeed. :-)