A Swiss electronics developer wants to end America’s honeymoon with the iPhone, or at least with the iPhone's e-book function. Monec Holding AG, based in Berne, Switzerland, filed suit March 23 in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., against Apple Inc., producer of the popular iPhone. Monec, which makes and sells electronics for use in mobile communications systems, alleges that the iPhone infringes a 2002 U.S. patent it holds for an “electronic book.”
The iPhone, known in part for the wide variety of programs it runs, such as a digital version of the classic ball-in-a-labyrinth game and an application that recognizes songs, can also display downloaded books. According to Monec’s complaint, the way in which Apple makes books available to read on the iPhone screen infringes Monec’s e-book patent.
Monec claims that Apple “willfully and wantonly” infringed its patent, entitling it to triple damages. The company seeks an injunction to stop the alleged infringement and an accounting of Apple’s profits “realized as a result of its wrongful conduct.”
Monec’s patent, included in its court filing, describes a small portable device with an LCD touch-screen large enough to display a single page of text. Books, newspapers, and other text, it says, could be purchased from electronic bookstores or kiosks, for example, and loaded onto the unit. (The patent also notes that, in addition to more conventional means, the device could be hooked up to a solar panel for power or even controlled by brainwaves using an electrode attached to the user’s head.)
Representing Monec are Joseph Wilson and Steven Moore of Kelley Drye & Warren. Both Wilson and Moore declined to comment on the suit.
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