Apple named in suit over iPhone, iPad 3G data transfer

Hawaiian company GPNE claims to hold patents on GPRS data transfer, and according to AppleInsider it's named Apple, RIM, Nokia, Sony, and Amazon in an infringement lawsuit. GPRS is a (much) slower form of data transfer available on all of Apple's iDevices; if you live in the U.S., chances are you've never even connected to GPRS on your iPhone since faster EDGE networks are fairly widespread. Other countries without nationwide 3G coverage and no EDGE to speak of (like New Zealand) have extensive GPRS coverage.

GPNE has accused Apple and other defendants of infringing on three separate patents. Oddly, all three patents have only recently been awarded: two in 2009, and one in 2010. GPRS has been around for far longer than that, however, and was standardized by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, so it's unclear how a Hawaiian company can reasonably assert patents over the technology.

GPNE has asked for post-judgment royalties should the court decide in its favor. Specific devices named include the iPad, iPhone 4, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and the BlackBerry Torch 9800, but according to AppleInsider the patent claim is worded broadly enough to apply to any 3G-capable device.

View Tags

Source: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/13/patent_suit_ta…

Categories

iPhone iOS

Hawaiian company GPNE claims to hold patents on GPRS data transfer, and according to AppleInsider it's named Apple, RIM, Nokia, Sony,...

Add a Comment

Sign in »

4 Comments

Filter by:

tim.mcateer@me.com

Here's an easy solution. Anyone who buys a patent can ONLY use it to defend themselves against patent judgements. If you didn't create it, you can't sue people because you bought a piece of paper. That would cut a lot of this junk out and save millions in tax dollars with these stupid patent lawsuits.

July 14 2011 at 10:26 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jono

Vodafone NZ doesn't have EDGE but 2degrees does.

July 14 2011 at 4:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

justinmarley

I don't travel to Houston that often, but I can attest that within the major metro area of Denver, I encounter the 'O' (which is GPRS per the Apple iPhone manual) quite often under AT&T's network.

July 13 2011 at 8:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

It seems there's no end in sight for these various suites. I suspect this might have roots back to the creation of the aloha method of communications that was developed by the U of Hawaii. I used to work in SatCom during the '90's and this was used to share the bandwidth by many transmitters. If I remember correctly, an aloha packet was sent to announce the intention to transmit (and thus reserve the space), and then the transmitter would initiate the packet flow. I suspect GPRS is using similar communications methods and why it's getting dragged into this?

On another note, I've been traveling to Houston lately and noticed the 'O' showing up (had to look it up since I'd never seen it before). So there's certainly some spots in the US that are even dropping back from Edge connectivity.

July 13 2011 at 7:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply