Appletell

According to Henry Milan, owner of patent number 6,991,483, Apple is infringing on his patent for a method to connect a Flash memory device to a connection port on another device, such as a computer.  This would affect devices such as the iPod Touch and iPod Nano, but Information Week has mentioned that, surprisingly, the iPhone is not mentioned in this report although it could be added.  The lawsuit wants to receive damages for the infringement as well as an injunction against the sales of the devices.  However, the law firm, Butzel Long, is not sure whether or not they want to pursue the injunction yet.

I’m sure Apple’s lawyers are busy over in Cupertino trying to get this straightened out, and I hope the lawsuit is settled quickly and efficiently for both sides.  I find it highly unlikely that the iPods will have to stop being sold, but that’s fairly obvious.  What are you thoughts on this patent dispute?  Is Mr. Milan on to something here?

It has become the norm to see that each week yet another lawsuit is filed against Apple. Last week we saw Apple sued over the iPhone battery, and this week has started of with Apple being sued over the iTunes Store. Rapper Eminem and his music publishers are taking Apple to court saying that Apple doesn’t have permission to be selling his music on the iTunes Store. Even though Apple pays a portion of the money collected for the tracks to Universal, Eminem’s music publishers claim that they never authorized Universal put the music up on iTunes.

At issue is is whether record labels have the right to turn an artist’s CD recordings into digital music downloads on the Internet, or whether further permission is needed from the music publishers who hold the copyrights to the lyrics and sheet music.

This quote from AppleInsider shows what it seems Eminem and his publishers are fighting for. I am not really sure what Eminem is up in arms about. Now that the iTunes Store is the third largest music store in the US, I would expect that Eminem is selling a fair amount of music on iTunes. If Apple loses the lawsuit and is forced to remove Eminem’s music from the store, who is it really hurting in the end?

Via [AppleInsider]